non timebo mala
by sodium-amytal
Summary: AU. Negan joins Rick in the perilous job of hunting monsters, and together they face demons, ghosts, and other unexplained creatures terrorizing the lives of their clients. But Negan soon discovers that even in a world crawling with supernatural beasts, the darkest horrors lurk inside human beings.
1. Chapter 1

_**Full Summary**_ : Negan has spent over two decades coping with his struggles through songwriting, and it's made his band, Negan & The Saviors, an established stadium rock act. After the tragic deaths of his wife and unborn daughter, Negan dives head-first into exorcising the demons in his head, but he can't deal with the ghost of his wife Lucille haunting the home they once shared. Desperate to put his lost love's spirit to rest, Negan seeks the help of paranormal investigator Rick Grimes, and an unexpected intimacy develops between them. As a single father to two children, Rick has suffered loss too, and in time Negan finds himself building a life with Rick and becoming the father he never had.

Unwilling to lose anyone else that he loves without a fight, Negan joins Rick in the perilous job of hunting monsters, and together they face demons, ghosts, and other unexplained creatures terrorizing the lives of their clients. But Negan soon discovers that even in a world crawling with supernatural beasts, the darkest horrors lurk inside human beings.

 _ **Tags/themes**_ : Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Developing Relationship, Drama, Grief/Mourning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Fluff, Domesticity, Rape, Rape Recovery, Death, Horror, Dark Themes

* * *

 _May 2013_

They lost the baby twenty-two weeks into Lucille's pregnancy, but Negan should have seen the signs early on. From the start, Lucille was warned about miscarriage due to blood clots from her heavy bleeding. Every spot of blood terrified her on good days and depressed her on the bad ones. One particularly harrowing evening, Negan found Lucille sitting on the edge of the tub and crying into a fluffy white towel.

"She's not going to make it," Lucille sobbed, her eyes and nose tinged with red from the bout of weeping.

Red beads and splashes flecked a short trail on the marble floor, stopping at the toilet bowl.

"You don't know that," Negan said. Back then, he believed optimism would soldier them through anything; the power of positive thinking was a gift Lucille had given him from the start of their relationship, and he was determined to pay it forward.

Lucille wiped her eyes with the towel, but more tears came just as quickly. "There's too much blood. Even if it's not every day, even if it's just once a week… That's too much."

But the bleeding cleared up after a while, and everything seemed fine until her next sonogram, where she was told her placenta had a likely chance of invading her bladder.

Lucille squeezed Negan's hand impossibly tight, and he could only imagine what that grip would be like when she went into labor.

"My baby…" Lucille said, trying to keep her chest from hitching. "Will she—"

Lucille's doctor, a middle-aged woman with a blonde ponytail and Angelina Jolie lips, said delicately, "If that happens, your baby should be fine. In most cases, the risk is to the mother."

Lucille nodded, seeming to take a great deal of strength in that.

So Negan and Lucille remained cautiously optimistic. As the frontman and lead guitarist of Negan & The Saviors, it wasn't like he was doing anything; the band had been on hiatus since their tour for last year's _Hearts Still Beating_ album. Negan had all the time in the world to tend to Lucille's every need, which he did without complaint.

Lucille began painting one of the spare bedrooms they had designated for the nursery. She covered the walls in a soft pastel blue, then later painted in some colorful cartoon animals. Negan did his best to help, but visual art was never his forte, so he stuck to handing her brushes and sponges. And, most importantly, providing conversation.

"This is a damn beautiful nursery, honey," Negan told her one afternoon.

Lucille gave a tiny huff of a laugh and a smile that told the world in general that she was humoring him. "That's sweet, but you're my husband. Bias comes with the territory." She was detailing a colorful parrot, and her hand was speckled with red and green paint up to the wrist.

"If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'. I'm also an artist myself. I know good shit when I see it."

"If you say so." She rolled her eyes, but the smile on her pink lips betrayed her.

A few days later, Lucille took up another painting project. She decided if the baby was going to stare at the ceiling most of the time, it ought to look appealing. Negan brought her a ladder from the garage, and Lucille became Michelangelo, brushing and stippling painted clouds across the ceiling.

For this fragile two-week period, it seemed as if they were growing closer, like they were newlyweds all over again. Neither of them knew how short the time was.

* * *

"Something's wrong," Lucille said in the middle of the night, shaking Negan awake just as he began to slip into sleep.

Negan sat up in the bed, rubbing his eyes. "You sure?" A stupid question, but he was still sluggish after being yanked from the cusp of dreamland.

Lucille opened her mouth to answer him, then she was sprinting for the bathroom. She barely managed to reach the toilet before vomiting. Negan saw the red splatters in the bowl and knew they were in for some serious shit.

The rest of it is hazy. His mind, to protect its sanity, has tried to blot out the awful memories of that night in the emergency room, but like erasing pencil marks from paper, an imprint still remains. He can recall a few bleached-white snippets of the hospital, a handful of flinch-worthy phrases: internal bleeding. Ruptured uterus. Hysterectomy.

Negan knew he stood to lose either the little ball of life in Lucille's belly or Lucille herself, and in his frantic moments of deliberation he could not choose one over the other. It was an impossible choice, but it was one already made for him.

None of it made any sense to Negan until he saw Lucille in the ICU that afternoon, saw the vacant, lost expression on her pallid face. The room began to spin. His lungs contracted. A doctor with thick-framed glasses took Negan aside and explained that Lucille's uterus had blown like a tire, drowning her insides in blood, and an emergency surgery had been necessary to save her life. The baby had not survived, and due to the life-saving hysterectomy Lucille would be unable to get pregnant again.

Memories pierce through Negan in rapid succession like angry stabs: the struggle to conceive, and the fun they'd had trying. Lucille's joyful tears and laughter over the blue line on her home pregnancy test. Their deliberation over baby names. Dean for a boy. Emily for a girl.

It would have been a girl.

"Your wife is very lucky to be alive," the doctor said, which struck Negan as such a bizarre thing to say under the circumstances he actually wanted to punch the guy.

"Don't tell her she's lucky," Negan said savagely before heading back into the room.

* * *

After burying Emily, a numbness spreads through Negan like Novocain. He feels nothing, perhaps staving off his grief in order to help Lucille deal with her own. And Lucille has plenty of grief for both of them. Negan does the best he can for her, but she barely looks at him. When she manages to meet his eyes, something in them makes her cry harder.

Negan knows fuck-all about cheering people up. On Lucille's previous bad days, when she'd come through the door with a storm cloud over her head, Negan could usually lift her spirits with a joke or physical affection. But none of those tactics work here: she pushes away intimacy, and his humor falls flat. So what the fuck is he supposed to do?

"Maybe you should talk to somebody," Negan suggests one afternoon. It's been two weeks since they put their dead baby in the ground. "I'm doin' a pretty shit job as a shrink."

Outside it's a bright, clear day, sunshine flowing in through the windows and half-open curtains. Negan hoped letting in some light would brighten the place up and, thus, brighten up their moods, but the illumination seems all wrong now.

Lucille's sitting beside him at their kitchen table. Her complexion is paler than usual, her dark hair stringy and oily. Underneath her eyes are dark purple circles that look like bruises. She stares at the table, her expression placid, which scares Negan more than tears or angry outbursts ever could.

Lucille doesn't answer. Gently, Negan plucks Lucille's hands out of her lap and covers them with his own. She doesn't retract them, which he thinks is a sign of progress. "You gotta talk your shit out with someone. I'll go with you, if that'll help."

Lucille nods, but there's nothing behind it.

* * *

The following week they visit a psychiatrist, Denise Cloyd, who barely looks older than Lucille had been when Negan married her five years ago. Before her turbulent pregnancy, Lucille barely looked a day over twenty, and she's thirty-one. There are numerous degrees hung on the wall of Dr. Cloyd's small office, so maybe she, like Lucille, has a youthful face.

"Do you want to talk about how you're feeling, Lucille?" Dr. Cloyd asks in a soft voice.

"There's no point in talking," Lucille says after gazing at the ceiling for a bit. "My baby is dead, and I'll never have another baby. Talking about it won't change anything."

"You're right. It won't. But it can help you and your husband deal with what happened. It's okay to cry and be upset. You need to grieve, to have an outlet for your emotions. Whatever you're feeling is okay to feel. But you don't need to talk right now if you don't want to. We can deal with things on your schedule." Dr. Cloyd turns her attention to Negan. "Do you have anything you'd like to talk about, Negan?"

"Nope."

"You sure? You lost a daughter, too."

"Yeah, I did, and I deal with my shit in my own way." Negan was raised to handle his problems on his own; his father was a class-A douchebag who bailed on the family when Negan was twelve, but not before instilling all kinds of harmful ideals into Negan's brain, like self-reliance to the point of self-destruction. He can't ask for help. Not when it really matters.

"And how's that?" asks Dr. Cloyd.

"Just keep grinding. No matter how hard it gets."

"Do you think that's a healthy way to deal with things?"

Negan shrugs. "It's got me this far."

"That's not really an answer."

"Why are you even asking me questions? Ask her." Negan tilts his head in Lucille's direction.

"You've been acting like everything's fine," Lucille blurts out. "But it's not. It's a fucking mess. And you're just ignoring it, because if you actually face it, it's real and you have to deal with it."

The flicker of fire in Lucille's words takes Negan off-guard. "I know it's real," he says. "I know our little girl is dead, and so are our chances of having another one, and while that is a sad fucking state of affairs, it's not the end."

Lucille scoffs a heated noise that strikes Negan like a punch in the chest. "You're delusional."

"What makes you say that, Lucille?" Dr. Cloyd asks her.

"All I wanted was to have a baby," Lucille says. Her hands are clenched around the hem of the Rolling Stones sweatshirt she borrowed from Negan's closet. "Losing Emily was bad enough, but I can't even try again. My body failed our baby. How am I supposed to forgive myself for that?" She covers her face with her too-long sleeves, and she sobs the way a child does, lost and endless.

* * *

Dr. Cloyd writes Lucille a prescription to help her post-partum depression. Lucille exhibits no enthusiasm over this, though Negan doubted she would. Maybe after a few days of taking the medication she'll feel a bit better. He has no idea what it's like in her head, and he's terrified to find out.

"We can get through this," Negan tells her later that afternoon. He made her a bowl of soup so she wouldn't take the pill on an empty stomach. He's overjoyed to see her eating now. "Hell, you pulled me up from rock bottom. Before you know it things'll get better."

Lucille snaps her head up to look at him, as if he has slapped her. "How can you say that?"

Some part of his pep talk offended her, and it's on Negan to figure out which one. He's trapped under the weight of her furious glare, and he wants to escape, to dive out the dining room window into the flower beds.

"It's not going to _get better_ ," Lucille says, her voice cracked. "Don't you get that?"

Apparently, he does not. Negan feels like he's in a Groundhog Day loop of this argument. No resolution. No compromise. Is it that way for her, too?

"Honey, can I be frank?" Negan says, before throwing his argument into four-wheel drive. "So what if you can't have a baby again? That doesn't change who you are or how I feel about you. If you still want kids, we can adopt. That's right up your alley, isn't it?" After she married Negan, Lucille quit her job to volunteer at women's and animal shelters. Though she put on a tough face, helping the less fortunate was important to her.

"It's not the same," Lucille protests. "How would you feel if this was on you? If you had a narrow urethra, or if your sperm count was too low, or if you couldn't make sperm at all?"

Before Negan can unpack that one, Lucille says something that throws him for a loop: "How would you feel if your baby died because you were scared? Like all that negativity and fear created a toxic soup inside you?"

Negan straightens up in his chair. He feels punched, breathless. "Honey, you didn't kill Emily. You did everything right. All those vitamins and that healthy food shit, rushing to the doctor practically every time you sneezed… Sometimes it's not your fault. Didn't you tell me that?"

"That was different. The Bitch was the problem." The Bitch is Negan's ex-wife—his first wife before Lucille came along. They have an unspoken agreement not to say her name, as though she is Voldemort from the Harry Potter books.

"And here the problem is that sometimes shit's just fucking horrible."

That, Negan realizes far too late, was the wrong thing to say.

* * *

Negan still has the note he found on the other side of the bed when he woke up that miserable June morning. The one written in Lucille's familiar handwriting. The one that talks about losing the joy and light in her life, about the hole in her heart, about how much she loved him. The one that begs him to forgive her.

The one he read before discovering Lucille in their acrylic bathtub, an orange prescription bottle discarded on the marble tile.

* * *

One month after losing Emily, Negan buries his wife next to their lost child.

At the cemetery, Negan is joined by Lucille's family—her mother, father, and older brother—and his bandmates from Negan & The Saviors. His own family is not present, because the only person who would have attended—Negan's mother—died three years ago. Lucille's mother is wailing sobs into her husband's chest, and these sounds cleave Negan's heart anew. She has lost something too, maybe something even larger than Negan has.

The Saviors don't sob or break down, but their eyes leak tears. They all knew Lucille and loved her for being good to Negan after his first wife had been anything but. Simon, the band's drummer and the closest thing Negan has to a brother, helped organize the funeral arrangements. Standing to Negan's left, Simon places a hand on his shoulder as the coffin is lowered into the ground. Negan lifts his own hand, as if reaching to his right to take hold of Lucille's dainty fingers, the way he had during his own mother's funeral.

It's not Lucille standing to his right, but the Saviors' rhythm guitarist, Jesus.

As Lucille's coffin is covered with dirt, Negan's world goes wobbly at the edges. Then he's on his knees, his fingers gripping the cold, smooth marble of his daughter's tombstone, and every pore of his body weeps.

* * *

 _March 2012_

On a crisp spring morning, Lori Grimes told her husband Rick that she was heading to Panola Mountain State Park with her friend Jacqui for an afternoon hike. She kissed him on the cheek and took Carl and Judith to school and daycare, respectively. The next time Rick saw her, she was dead.

Around the middle of the afternoon, Rick received a panicked call from Jacqui.

"Lori's missing," Jacqui said, sounding breathless.

Rick sat up in his chair. "She didn't show up?"

"No, she did, but she just vanished. We were walking the trail. She was behind me, and—I don't know what happened, Rick." Jacqui started to sob, but composed herself long enough to tell Rick that she had contacted the park rangers, who conducted a fruitless search of the area in which Lori vanished. Calling Rick made sense, because he was the sheriff of King County, and Search and Rescue hadn't turned up any leads.

According to the coroner after Lori's remains were located, her cause of death had been exsanguination. Multiple bite wounds and tears were found on her body, made from inhuman teeth. The creature had eaten her for hours until she bled out. Her body—or what was left of it—was cremated.

So it's almost poetic justice that Rick cremated the wendigo that killed her. He, along with three of his deputies, discovered the wendigo's lair deep in the park. As they ventured deeper, a pair of glowing eyes lit up the darkness, like the burning tips of cigarettes. Then a fifteen-foot tall pale creature with elongated limbs emerged from the shadows.

Sheriff's Deputy Leon Basset didn't stand a chance. The wendigo tore through Leon like he was made of papier-mâché and popsicle sticks. Rick and his remaining deputies Shane Walsh and Lambert Kendal immediately opened fire on the creature. But bullets did nothing to deter the wendigo's approach. The monster sank claws as long as knives into Lambert's shoulder and tossed him out of the way. The stench of blood filled Rick's nose. And those screams…

Rick whipped out a lighter and struck up a flame. "Shane!"

Shane Walsh, having been like a brother to Rick for the past two decades, knew Rick's intentions and took out his can of pepper spray. The pepper spray ignited a jet of flame that torched the wendigo. The creature howled an unholy scream as the fire consumed it before shriveling up like a lit tissue.

They found Lori's body in the deepest part of the cave, along with the skeletal remains of other lost hikers.

* * *

It took Rick about a week for the world to feel real again. He fumbled through the memorial service in a daze, shaken to the core by all that had happened. Judith was two and a half, and wouldn't stop asking "where's Mommy?" And it broke Rick's heart every time he had to tell her Mommy went to heaven. Children that young don't understand the concept of death. It is incomprehensible to them that a person could be here one day and then gone the next, never to be seen again. It's a little incomprehensible to Rick, too.

Twelve-year-old Carl took his mother's death hard. He shut himself in his room, only leaving for meals. His grades at school plummeted despite the slack given to him by his teachers due to his loss. "You should have been with her!" Carl yelled at Rick one evening, his emotions erupting. "You were s'posed to protect her, and you didn't!"

It was the cruelest thing Carl had ever said to him, stabbing deeper than the _I hate you_ s thrown out in pre-teen frustration. Because Carl was right. Rick's unspoken vow on that beautiful Georgia summer day he married Lori was to protect her. And he failed. He had no idea of the dangers lurking out there, and that ignorance got his wife killed.

So Rick let Carl storm up the stairs and slam the door to his bedroom. Rick lingered in the den, trembling after the Chernobyl of father-son arguments.

Since his son was already disillusioned, Rick decided to tell him the truth. He might have gotten Lori killed by proxy of his ignorance, but there was no way in hell he'd let the same thing happen to his kids. "No more kid stuff," Rick said the next day, crouching to get on Carl's level. "I wish you could have the childhood I had, but that's not going to happen. You are not safe. The thing that killed your mom… There are more of them out there, and you'll never know where."

It was in this moment Carl asked the question that set Rick's life on a new course: "How do we stop them?"

Rick didn't know. He needed to find out.

Rick spent the next few months keeping a journal to document his research on various supernatural creatures and lore. He scoured websites and books for information, clipped out reports of mysterious deaths from newspapers. He watched "reality" shows about ghost chasers and Bigfoot hunters. Most of these shows were bullshit, dramatized fakery, but he discovered one more tolerable than the rest.

Redneck Bigfoot Hunters didn't have the most eloquent title Rick had ever heard, but it was succinct and to-the-point. Hosted by brothers Daryl and Merle Dixon, the show chronicled their search for Bigfoot in the Georgia backwoods as they were followed by a camera crew. Of course they never caught a Bigfoot on camera, but something about their methods pointed to the Dixon brothers having experience with other supernatural creatures.

"They never catch anything on these shows," Carl complained one night when he came downstairs for a drink of water and found Rick on the couch watching TV. "They're so stupid."

Rick knew enough to know a couple bozos in the wilderness with cameras wouldn't ever record anything substantial. These creatures have existed among humans for thousands of years because they're smart. They know how to hide and live undetected. Bubba McMoonshine and his mulleted crew won't get documented footage of anything other than their own hijinks.

But he still watched, eager to learn, hoping for a glimpse of something once thought unreal.

* * *

Rick retired from the sheriff's department four months later when Shane was wounded in a shootout. Shane wasn't mortally injured ("I've had worse," Shane told him when Rick visited the hospital), but again Rick was stricken by the sudden, shocking nature of violence. _This could be you_ , Rick thought when he saw Shane lying in that hospital bed with blood staining the crisp white gauze wrapped around his shoulder. Rick realized he could not afford to die. Judith and Carl would be sent off to live with their grandparents—whether his parents or Lori's would be specified in Rick's will, if he were wise enough to draw one up before his premature death. Carl would remember him, perhaps fondly, but Rick would only be a hazy recollection for Judith. She might remember how he'd pushed her on the swings at the park, or taken her for walks around the neighborhood, but it would be unclear and impermanent, like wisps of smoke.

Before Rick turned in his resignation, he looked up houses for sale on his laptop. There were plenty in Georgia, but he wasn't interested in those. He wanted a fresh start, somewhere people wouldn't look at him with pity. A place that didn't remind him of Lori. By chance, he found a house for sale in an Alexandria, Virginia community: a Nantucket style two-story with grey shingle siding and white trim. The house had a sunflower yellow door, a quaint front porch, and a decent price tag due to foreclosure.

Rick bookmarked the listing and researched the neighborhood. Their current house was newly paid off; he could sell the place for relatively cheap and still have money left over after buying the more-attractive-by-the-minute house in Alexandria. Lori's savings account—the contents of which now belonging to Rick—was pretty impressive from her career as an advertising executive. It wouldn't be much of a financial strain to get out of here.

Something to consider.

* * *

"I've been thinking about moving," Rick said to Carl some time in late August. The three of them were sitting at the table, eating the lasagna Rick heated up for dinner.

Carl looked at Rick with a curious expression. More confusion than anger.

"But you have a life here too, and I don't want to take you away from that unless it's your decision," Rick told him. "You get a say in this."

"Where would we go?" Carl asked.

"Somethin' on your mind?"

Carl shrugged halfheartedly. "Japan?"

Rick gave him a look.

"It's where they make anime."

"You don't even know Japanese."

"I could learn," Carl said, like it was absurd Rick would question this. He sighed and changed his answer to something more reasonable. "What about Hollywood?"

"No."

"I thought I was s'posed to get a say!" Carl protested. He turned to his sister, who was paying zero attention to them, just diligently chewing her food. "Back me up on this. Tell Dad you wanna live in Hollywood."

"I wanna live in Hollywood," Judith parroted with glee.

Rick smiled at their banter. It was good to see Carl coming back to himself, exhibiting emotions that weren't anger or depression. "I don't have the money for that kind of lifestyle. But here's what I had in mind."

Rick showed Carl the listing on his laptop. Carl lifted an eyebrow, searching for a reason Rick might have chosen this house other than a random roll of the dice. "It's cool, I guess. Isn't that where Washington D.C. is?"

"It's nearby, yeah," Rick conceded.

"Are you running for president or something?"

"It just seems like a nice place… but if you don't like it, I'll find something else. Or we'll stay here. It's up to you."

Carl made a face, like he didn't appreciate bearing the weight of decision-making. "I guess it doesn't matter," he said with another shrug. Apparently kids seem to be made of shrugs and noncommittal responses. Or maybe it was just Carl.

"Are you saying that because you want me to stop talking?"

Carl huffed a laugh, which surprised Rick, because he hadn't heard his son laugh in quite a while. "No, I just… No matter where we move, I won't know anybody. I'll be the new kid. But at school now I'm the kid whose mom died"—Rick wasn't oblivious to the way Carl's voice shook when he said it—"and that's worse."

Rick knew what Carl felt, the sense of ostracization that came with being a victim of tragedy. People either treated you like a social leper, tiptoeing around you as though every conversation was a minefield, or they tried way too hard to cheer you up.

"Is that why you haven't been spending time with your friends?" For almost the entire summer, Carl stayed at home playing video games, watching TV, or using his computer. Rick would have worried Carl wasn't socializing as much as he should, but the kid was definitely chatting with online friends, with people who didn't know who he was or what he'd been through.

"Some of my friends found out about the monster," Carl told him with a shake of his head. "They keep wanting to talk about it or go find more. I just wish they'd forget about it."

Contrary to Rick's personal experience, which involved a whole lot of denial and willful ignorance. No one at the sheriff's department wanted to talk about the wendigo. And Rick understood.

* * *

Rick sold the house, and by January the following year the Grimes family moved to Alexandria. Almost everyone on their street welcomed Rick with open arms and perfectly baked casseroles, fawning over Judith as the movers hauled furniture and boxes into the house. The neighbors to Rick's left were a young couple with a baby: Glenn and Maggie Rhee. On Rick's right lived Pete and Jessie Anderson with their two boys; Carl and the Anderson's eldest son, Ron, seemed to get along okay. At the end of the cul-de-sac was another young couple: Tara and Rosita Espinosa.

No one pestered Rick about why he moved here, or why he had two children and a wedding ring but no cohabitating partner. They gave him and his family space but made sure to let him know to just ask if he needed anything. Tara and Rosita volunteered to babysit Judith; Rick took them up on the offer when he went into town to meet with the owner of an office building on the outskirts of the city. There was a vacant space for rent, and Rick eventually turned it into Grimes & Associates, a licensed private investigation agency. There were, of course, no associates, but he couldn't think of a snappier name.

Rick did a fair amount of business, though most of his clients were the average PI fare, looking for someone to catch their spouse in the act of cheating. Some asked him to track down their long-lost relatives. He advertised his paranormal investigation services in the weirder parts of Reddit and Craigslist. He made somewhat of a name for himself among cryptid and paranormal enthusiasts. And every now and then he got something strange, something that raised the hairs on the back of his neck…


	2. Chapter 2

_July 2013_

Negan has never been more productive than he is a month and a half after Lucille's death. He calls Simon at four in the morning after putting the finishing touches on a new song: an acoustic ballad called "Gone Away."

"It's four in the fucking morning," Simon grouses, as though Negan doesn't own a clock.

Negan's sitting cross-legged on the bedroom floor, with pages of handwritten lyrics, tabs and chords spread out around him. In his lap sits his black steel-stringed Martin D-35 guitar. The Johnny Cash model. "I wrote fifteen fucking songs in six weeks, and that's the thanks I get?"

"Fifteen?" Over the phone, Negan hears the whisper of sheets as Simon sits up in bed. "You're shittin' me."

"No shit, my man." Negan grins. "That's a whole album, maybe one and a half if we play our cards right."

Simon exhales in a way Negan knows very well. It's the noise he makes when it's necessary to talk Negan down from what he hopes is a passing delusion.

"Don't you fucking sigh at me. Today was a productive damn day!"

"Fine," Simon says with another sigh. "Play me something."

So Negan does. "Gone Away" is his pride and joy right now, so he goes with it. It is, as one would expect, a huge fucking bummer of a song. Negan is all about channeling his emotions into his music. He won't talk about his feelings with a licensed professional or even a friend, but he'll write a song about them and play it in front of thousands of people. Who needs therapy when you have songwriting, Negan's always said.

 _Now you've gone away,_

 _I wasted all my time,_

 _I can't pretend I was blind, I couldn't see,_

 _Built a wall around my heart,_

 _Never let you in, I lost it all,_

 _And now I'm on my own, livin' lonely,_

 _Since you've gone away…_

When it's over, Simon waits a beat and says, "Are they all like that?"

"Like what?"

"Fuckin' depressing? So slow the tempo's written in negative numbers?"

"Fuck you," Negan says. "That's one less song you have to play on. I did you a favor." Simon's been complaining about his joints since the last tour; Negan figures the less Simon has to drum, the better.

But Negan takes a glance at some of the other song titles heading his note pages: Come Back Home. No Way. It's Too Late. Goodbye.

So he's a bit of a downer. The fact that he has arranged these titles in an order that resembles a conversation is just icing on the depression cake.

"Look, maybe you need to step away from everything for a while," Simon suggests, sounding nervous as he breaks the silence. "Take a vacation or something."

A vacation? More like a consolation prize in the aftermath of losing everything he's ever given a shit about. The last time Negan had a vacation he was with Lucille. They had gone to the Caribbean upon her request; she'd been born and raised in a small, podunk Indiana town, and had never even been on a plane before she met him. They spent two weeks enjoying the private villa and the beach. The memory of Lucille in that spellbinding black swimsuit is burned into Negan's brain like the afterimage on a television screen.

"This is some primo fuckin' material, Simon."

"And it'll still be here when you get back," Simon reminds him. "What's the rush?"

The rush is that Negan needs a project into which he can channel all his unspoken anger, grief, and emptiness. A vacation will give him ample time to think: about Lucille, about Emily, about what to do with his vacant hole of a life.

But being elsewhere is better than being in this house filled with memories. Even after Negan stored away the photos of Lucille strewn about the house, reminders of her are everywhere: the bookmarked hardcover of Stephen King's _Misery_ on the bedside table, the decorative throw pillows Lucille picked out for their sofa, the beauty products in their bathroom drawers and cabinets, the colorful accent walls Lucille painted when they first moved into the house. And he's not even touching the nursery. He'd have to burn the house down to extinguish all the tangible reminders of his loss, and then he would lose even more of her.

* * *

Negan's first and only album written under Lucille's influence is _Hearts Still Beating_. Lauded by critics and fans alike as one of the band's best records, the album is one part a love letter to Lucille, and one part a scorching middle finger to his ex-wife. Lucille helped Negan excise those angry, self-loathing parts of himself as though they were malignant tumors. He put them to music, and it was a stupefying experience to see how much those emotions resonated with people, at least according to the album's sales and chart performance.

When Negan neared the end of writing what became the closing track on the album, the two of them were in the living room. Negan sat on the couch with his acoustic guitar, while Lucille was curled up in the easy chair, her legs tucked underneath her as she read a dog-eared paperback. The melody had come easily enough, but he struggled with the words. None of them seemed to fall into place the way he wanted.

Lucille looked up from her book and said, "You're being too kind."

She was right about that. The songs he'd written about Lucille fell together with ease, because he was in love, and while those were relatively new emotions for him to put on record, he wasn't ashamed of them. Every band has a love song of some sort, even the most balls-to-the-wall acts. But as much as Negan hated She Who Must Not Be Named, giving that deeply personal anger and betrayal a voice felt like a misstep that would come back to bite him.

Lucille continued, "Do you think she's gonna hear it and get mad? Fuck her. She earned this. I thought you told me she rarely listened to your stuff anyway."

Upon examination of how unkind She had been, Negan could certainly afford to be a bit of a jerk. The words came freely and easily, as though he only needed Lucille to open up the Vengeful Dickhead channel in his brain and make it work for him:

 _For all the times I swore that I was gonna die for you,_

 _For all the times you told me 'no one's gonna cry for you,'_

 _I am finally free,_

 _You gave me darkness and I taught myself to shine a light,_

 _I hope you find the things you've felt you've always been denied._

As he tested them out, Lucille filled in the last two lines:

 _I can finally see how I pretended,_

 _Now that you're out of my life._

"Damn it, now I gotta give you a songwriting credit," Negan said.

Lucille laughed and told him, "It'll be our little secret."

* * *

Negan vacations in Europe for six months. He travels from Portugal, to Spain, to France, then Ireland, the UK, Germany, and finally to Italy. On the few occasions the band has performed outside the US, he's never been able to fully explore the area due to time constraints. There are no such limitations now; he has all the time in the world, and pockets deep enough to handle the currency conversion rates.

He eats and drinks—mostly drinks—the local fare. On the few occasions he is recognized, he graciously signs autographs and poses for pictures. He doesn't mind the attention; he relishes in it. Fans are living proof that Negan has made an impact on the world, that he will be remembered when he's gone; each one of their lives has been touched, however infinitesimally, by his music.

When darkness falls and sleep doesn't come, Negan keeps himself distracted by engaging with the nightlife. He parties in bars and nightclubs with locals and tourists alike. A few of them ask the question Negan detests above all others: _are you okay?_ And Negan lies and tells them, sure, he's just taking a little time off. A few times he thinks about saying, _I'm doing everything I can to distract myself from the complete and total shitshow my life has become,_ but he keeps it inside.

One early morning in a London inn, Negan is awakened by his cell phone. He checks the screen with bleary eyes and presses the answer button. "What the fuck, Gregory?" Negan says the man's name like it's an obscenity. "It's 3 in the goddamn morning."

Gregory is the band's manager. He's a sniveling, selfish little weasel when left unchecked, but Negan knows how to manipulate him. "What the hell is going on with you?" Gregory asks. "Your wife died four months ago, and you're off gallivanting in Europe with fans?"

"Is this actually a problem, or are you just making it one because you've got fuck-all to do lately?"

"You have a five-album contract with Terminus that's up in two years," Gregory says, dodging that conversational brick. "You've only put out two so far." _Hearts Still Beating_ and the accompanying tour's live album, for those keeping score.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," Negan groans.

Gregory soldiers on. "If you want those next three albums to sell, you can't endanger your reputation with all this"—he searches for a gentle word, and perhaps finding none, settles on—"nonsense."

"Well, excuse the fuck out of me for wanting to feel good!"

"Of course, I understand what you're doing," Gregory says, which Negan finds suspect, because not ten seconds ago the man just called Negan's coping methods nonsense. "But the public won't. And maybe James Hetfield or Dave Grohl could afford a bit of bad publicity—what's a million or two fans to huge acts like them?—but it's tougher where you are."

"Just what are you suggesting here, Gregory?"

"I'm telling you to be careful, okay?"

"And I'm telling you if I say I'm looking for a new manager, there'd be a line around the block. I might be a medium-size fish in a big pond, but you're fucking chum."

Negan hears Gregory swallow on the other end, the sound of it like a cartoon character's gulp.

"I want you to understand that," Negan says.

"R—right. Of course."

Negan thinks of plenty more things to say: cruel, scathing things that would allow him to unload some of the anger he's been carrying around. But that would lead to a fight, and he's too tired to fight now. So he hangs up the call and falls back into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Three months later, at the tail end of the year, Negan returns home to a clusterfuck. The inside of the house is a mess, as though a herd of rampaging elephants has trampled through. Coats and shoes tossed from the foyer litter the floor of the entryway like war wounded. In the living room, broken glass and ceramics lie shattered on the floor. Floor rugs are overturned and out of sorts, their corners messily folded. Some of the cabinets and drawers have been opened. There are books strewn across the floor, thrown from their shelves.

Also it's fucking freezing, but that's the least of his problems right now.

Negan spots the broken pieces of one of his prize possessions: the framed platinum record of _Hearts Still Beating._ His blood catches fire.

Negan isn't materialistic by any means, despite his large collection of material possessions. He enjoys the things he owns and doesn't let them own him. They're just window dressing. But someone broke into his house and destroyed his property, and for what? Negan can't think of anything offhand that might be missing. Unless…

Negan races downstairs to the basement. He turned the basement into a man-cave five years ago after buying the house. It's where he keeps his collection of guitars, along with a 50-inch screen TV, a PlayStation 3, his enormous collection of record albums, as well as amplifiers and foot pedals and effects boxes. There's even a self-service bar. Holy shit, if someone fucked with his equipment…

To his relief, the basement appears untouched. The TV remains mounted on the wall. The PlayStation is tucked away just as he'd left it. All of the wines and spirits seem to be intact. His guitar cases are zippered and locked shut, so he performs a quick check to ensure all is well. How strange that someone would break into his house and avoid the one room with the most valuable items. Could they have overlooked it? The door to the basement, located on the other side of the staircase, might appear to be a simple coat closet or storage room to someone unfamiliar with the house.

Or, perhaps, the burglar was looking for something specific and found it before ever reaching the basement.

Burning with rage and having nowhere to direct it, Negan runs through a list in his head of people who might want to steal from him. Simon knows better, so he's out. Dwight, the Saviors' bassist, doesn't much concern himself with Negan when they're not recording or on tour, so scratch him too. Jesus has no reason to harbor any resentment against Negan, and if you can't trust a guy who nicknamed himself Jesus, who _can_ you trust? That leaves Eugene on keyboards. Since his recent addition to the group, Eugene has been sucking up to Negan like it's his damn job, which is a great ploy if you're planning to double-cross someone, but Negan thinks that's almost too obvious. Especially for Eugene. Anyone with a mullet post-1992 can't afford to be obvious.

A name prickles at the edges of Negan's mind. Gregory. Gregory was the only one busting Negan's balls over his extended vacation. Could Gregory have wrecked Negan's house to enact a bit of revenge against him?

Before he can second-guess himself, Negan's dialing the number.

"Gregory, you thin-dicked fuckstick," Negan says when Gregory answers. "What the shit did you do to my house?"

"What on earth are you talking about?" On any other day it would be amusing how much fear oozes out of Gregory's voice, but Negan's not in the fucking mood. "Did something happen?"

"You sure you didn't slither over here and trash the place to feel like a big man again?" A thought occurs to Negan. "That's why you left the guitars and amps alone. As royally pissed off as you may be with me, you wouldn't stop the goose from laying its golden eggs and lining your pocketbook."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Gregory insists. "Did someone break into your house?"

"Indeedy-fucking-do, and when I find the sorry bastard, you can bet I'm sure as shit not letting this slide."

"Negan, I didn't steal from you or rob you or anything like what you're insisting," Gregory says, and of course he didn't. He's too spineless to commit the crime himself. He'd send someone else to do it. Plausible deniability and all that. "But if you don't believe me, why don't you file a report? Don't you have some kind of, I don't know, surveillance in your multi-million-dollar mansion?"

"Surveillance?" Negan snorts a laugh. "This ain't the NSA." But Gregory is right to a degree. When Negan bought the 'multi-million-dollar mansion,' he installed small home security cameras over the front and back doors, just as a precaution.

This mention of surveillance reminds Negan of the home alarm system. If someone had broken into the house, they would have tripped the alarm, in which case Negan would have been contacted. But he hadn't been. Not one phone call, email, or even a text from the home security service. Which means the burglar was either incredibly sneaky or knew the alarm code.

Could someone have memorized the code by watching Negan punch it into the keypad? It's possible. The first person who comes to mind as a perpetrator now—or at least as an accomplice—is Eugene. He has been over to the house plenty of times, and he's freaky-good with numbers. But why would Eugene want to wreck Negan's house?

 _Maybe pull the security footage before you start suspecting everyone in your life of being a double-crossing dickhead?_

Negan hangs up on Gregory—because fuck him—and heads upstairs to fetch his laptop. He'd left the computer on the bed, and the laptop's lying on the carpeted floor now amidst discarded books, picture frames, and lamps. More innocent victims of the burglar. He retrieves the laptop, and he's relieved to find it still works. The machine boots without much protest, just the usual loud whir of the fan. When everything's loaded, Negan navigates to the homepage for the camera recordings. The camera works on a motion detector, and all video is stored in the Cloud. Occasionally, the host server wipes all recordings older than six months, unless the videos are marked with a special save tag. Doesn't matter to Negan. Six months is just what he needs.

To Negan's surprise, there are five recordings. One taken on the day of his departure, which makes sense. Then three more, spread intermittently through the months. Then the final one, taken as he walked through the door just twenty minutes ago. He decides to look at the three questionable videos first.

The first video, recorded two months ago from the view of the back door, seems to start _in media res._ The vase of plastic sunflowers on the dining table jitters to the edge and then drops off. It shatters on the hardwood floor where it lands. Then, on the shelves, the cookbooks and picture frames begin to move. They fall to the ground as though carried by a troupe of invisible ants.

The next objects to move do so at a greater velocity, and on the screen Negan can see the activity in the living room. Framed pictures and wall art slam to the floor. Glass vases and sculptures are hurled at the hardwood. Lamps go soaring into the walls. And there goes his framed platinum album, and the throw pillows from the couch.

Negan can't rationalize what he's seeing. Is he drunk? Maybe it's the jet lag from that nine-hour flight. He can't really be seeing what he's seeing. Objects don't just move on their own _._ But that's exactly what's happening.

The second and third videos display more of the same. More incomprehensibly moving objects. A chill spreads in Negan's veins that has nothing to do with the freezing temperature inside the house. He wants to believe all of this was caused by freak earthquakes, but, if he looks close enough, he notices something. The way the objects are cleared off horizontal surfaces, it's almost like they're being swept off. The way a person might do in the heat of an argument. Or the aftermath of one. Even the vases and frames being thrown are chucked, like they're just ammunition in a raging conflict.

Somehow Negan doesn't scream.

* * *

 _January 2014_

It happens on a cold January morning. Rick's at the office waiting on his ten o'clock appointment when _he_ walks in: the most ruggedly attractive man Rick has ever seen.

He's wearing a black leather jacket, a red scarf, and dark jeans. But his clothes aren't as important as his face. Fuck, his _face_ is a work of art. He has green eyes and nearly-black hair, and a salt-and-pepper beard Rick wants to feel between his thighs. Rick guesses the guy's in his mid to late forties, but some of the lines around his eyes could point to an older age bracket.

This, Rick realizes, is his ten o'clock.

"Oh, you must be Mr…" Rick glances at his notepad to find the name.

"Negan. Just Negan." He slides his tongue over his top row of teeth, staring at Rick as though sizing him up. "Not ringin' any bells?"

"I remember. You called yesterday." It's not exactly a common name, and Rick immediately recalls the honey-smooth voice on the phone that stirred something long dormant inside of him.

Negan sits in the chair across from Rick's desk. He crosses one leg over the other, looking casual as all hell. "Most people have heard of me."

"You somebody worth knowin'?" Rick asks. He's not trying to be flirty, but if the shoe fits…

Negan's eyebrows shoot up in a look of surprise. "Oh, you better be jokin'. I'm Negan." He pauses, waiting for a look of recognition on Rick's face, or an admission of jest. When it doesn't come, he adds, "Of Negan & The Saviors? We've been makin' records for over twenty years. Can't say we're too modern for ya. Lemme guess, the most recent album you own is Led Zeppelin IV?"

Rick has to smile a little at Negan's indignation. "Elvis's '68 comeback special." He's joking this time.

"Je-hee-sus, you're killin' me." Negan chuckles darkly. "Okay, I know you've heard that song 'Party,' from the Pepsi commercials? Guess who's making sweet, sweet bank off of that one?"

"You?"

Negan grins at him. "You're catchin' on."

Unless Rick's mistaken, "Party" came out in the late 1980s, its sound fitting right alongside bands like Guns 'N Roses and Bon Jovi. Negan wasn't joking about the band's longevity.

"Licensing a song'll net you a million bucks, easy-peasy," Negan says.

"Guess I don't have to worry about gettin' stiffed on the bill."

Negan laughs a disarmingly gentle sound. "Well, I didn't come here to brag about how big or rich my dick is. I'm here so you can do your Ghostbusters shit on my house."

"Tell me what's goin' on," Rick says. His chair creaks as he leans forward.

"That's about the long and short of it. I got a ghost in my house, and I want it gone." A flicker of emotion crosses Negan's face. Sadness? Regret?

"Does any spot in your house smell like sulfur?"

Negan's expression scrunches up in thought, recollection. "No."

"Any cold spots?"

"The whole fuckin' house is colder than a witch's tit."

"How long have you known about the ghost?"

"Since I got back from vacation yesterday. I guess it's been hanging around my place for the last couple months. Take a look at this." Negan reaches into the pocket of his leather jacket. Rick's blood jumps reflexively for a half-second, then Negan withdraws his cell phone. He taps the screen a couple times and turns the phone to show Rick what looks like surveillance camera footage.

The video shows startling evidence of paranormal activity. Objects fly across the dining room like they're being thrown by some invisible force.

"You're seein' this shit, too, right? Tell me I'm not crazy," Negan says.

A year ago Rick would have written this off as trick photography, special effects cloaked by poor quality video. He knows better now. "Nah, you're not crazy," Rick drawls, rubbing his bristly chin. "There's somethin' there."

Negan exhales a tiny sigh of relief. "Thank fuck. I thought I was losing my damn mind."

Rick looks up from the phone to Negan. "You never believed in this stuff before, did you?"

"Never had much of a reason to until now." Negan cocks his head. "What else is out there goin' bump in the night?"

"You don't wanna know. Things were a lot simpler when I didn't."

"You know of any ghosts who screw around with your head like some Freddy Krueger shit?" Negan seems as though he's going to elaborate, but he shakes his head, aborting the thought before it leaves his mouth. "'Cause last night was one of my top ten worst, and I've had some fuckin' doozies."

As far as Rick knows, only demons and angels can enter a person's dreams. The lack of a sulfur smell rules out demons, and it's probably not an angel if Negan's in here wanting the thing gone.

"You're sleeping in a house that's haunted," Rick points out. "Your dreams might be a little strange."

Negan shrugs a shoulder in agreement. Then he laughs. "I live in a haunted house, huh? No shit? I ought'a charge admission."

"I wouldn't do that. Could be dangerous. Has the ghost tried to hurt you?"

"It's driving me fucking nuts. Does that count? Damn thing's makin' noise all night, flickering the lights, tossing stuff around."

A ghost that moves objects is a poltergeist. Poltergeists come in two varieties: the mischievous, playful type, or the malevolent spirit kind. Judging by the surveillance footage, it's a safe bet this ghost isn't looking for a playmate.

"I slept in the basement last night," Negan says, an edge of shame in his voice. "I don't think it can go down there." He fixes Rick with an intense look. The hairs on Rick's skin feel alive in a way they haven't been since Lori. "So give it to me straight, Rick," he says, and Rick feels a start at his name coming from Negan's mouth. "How do we gank this sucker?"

"I'll have to do some research on the history of your house. But I think the spirit is just trapped between worlds, looking for a way out."

"Why's it fucking with me? I haven't even been in the damn house for six months."

"Spirits are like wounded animals. They're lost and angry, so they lash out. Something's keeping this spirit in your house. I gotta find out what that is. Maybe it was a previous owner who died in there, or had something traumatic happen to them."

Negan loses a bit of color at that. If Rick hadn't been staring at Negan's face, he wouldn't have noticed. But he doesn't want to poke at something that might be a sensitive topic. If there was violence or death in Negan's house, Rick can dig up evidence, be it an obituary, a police report, or a news article.

Rick slides a yellow legal pad toward Negan. "Leave me your address and number. I'll see what I can find. I'd like to take a look around your place, if that's alright with you. Get some EMF readings, see what I'm dealing with."

"You're the boss," Negan says with a sardonic smile.


	3. Chapter 3

#

The more Rick digs, the worse it gets. Through an extensive online search, he uncovers the tragedies that have befallen Negan in that house in McLean, Virginia. The failed pregnancy and near-death of Negan's wife, Lucille. Then Lucille's suicide by overdose one month later; Negan had been the one to find her. The text of Lucille's suicide note has been posted on various tabloid websites. Rick doesn't read it. That seems like an intrusion, a violation of trust. Some things should stay private.

What puzzles Rick is this: aside from those two calamities, he can't find anything else suspicious about the house or its prior inhabitants. The mansion was built in 1985 before being put on the market by the owner about twenty years later, at which point ownership transferred to Negan. Rick does some digging on the original owner—Deanna Monroe—but aside from learning that her husband landed in a bit of trouble with the IRS (thus the need to sell the house), Rick finds nothing out of the ordinary. He even researches the history of the land where the mansion sits, thinking maybe it was built on some sacred burial ground. But, alas, nothing. Squeaky clean.

Which means the ghost wreaking havoc in Negan's house belongs to Lucille. If there's any tried-and-true recipe for creating a restless spirit, Lucille's tragic story checks all the boxes.

How do you break it to a guy that his dead wife is haunting him?

 _Maybe you don't have to,_ Rick thinks. Because maybe Negan already knows. Wasn't that why he looked so wounded when Rick mentioned the death of a previous owner? It's absurd to think Negan has never considered the possibility that the ghost belongs to his dead wife.

Rick sighs and dials the number Negan left underneath his address on the notepad. Negan picks up almost immediately.

"It's Rick, from Grimes & Associates. I think I know how to solve your ghost problem, but there's something I wanna try first. You busy tonight?"

"Just spending some quality time with Jim, Jack, and José."

It takes Rick a moment to decode that one. Jim Beam. Jack Daniel's. José Cuervo.

"Yeah? Well, maybe I'll join you." Rick hopes he's not misinterpreting this; he might die of embarrassment if he's accidentally invited himself to an orgy.

"Misery loves company," Negan says, and Rick can almost hear the smile in his voice.

#

Rick leaves the kids with Tara and Rosita for the evening. The two girls are happy to help; Judith loves Tara's willingness to be silly, and both Tara and Rosita are young enough that Carl sees them as cool older sisters or cousins rather than stuffy old babysitters. Rick could have had Maggie and Glenn look after the kids, but on such short notice, that might not be the best idea; they've got a one-year-old of their own to take care of.

It's a thirty-minute drive from Rick's home to Negan's two-story stucco mansion. Negan lives in an area of Virginia home to diplomats, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials. Somehow this doesn't mesh with Negan's career or the image he gives off. What's a rock musician doing living amongst the government stiffs?

Rick supposes it makes sense, since the previous owner of the house had been a Congresswoman. Still, why would Negan choose to live here?

When the GPS guides Rick to the house, he's a little intimidated by the size and design of it all. There are pillars out front, for God's sake, like it's a Roman coliseum. Rick hauls his equipment bag out of the car and ascends the smooth stairs. He rings the doorbell, and Negan answers after a handful of seconds. His leather jacket is open, showing off a white t-shirt underneath. His jeans, to use the old cliche, cling in all the right places.

Negan takes in Rick's awed expression and misconstrues it for admiration of the house. He spreads his arms like a showman basking in applause. "Pretty magnificent place, huh? An embarrassment of riches, as they say."

Rick looks up at the overhang. "Sure is big."

"Title of my sex tape." Negan chuckles and opens the door wider in invitation. "C'mon in, Rick. Make yourself at home."

Rick follows Negan inside—the man actually swaggers, and, _damn_ , it looks good on him. Rick has no complaints about viewing Negan from behind. The origin of this sudden surge of desire strikes him as odd. Rick's had a passing interest in other men—a few select dudes have turned his head once or twice—but something about Negan is impossible to resist.

Rick surveys his surroundings. There aren't a lot of decorations, but the ghost probably destroyed most of the breakable things; plenty of the horizontal surfaces are bare, save for the bookshelves, which retain a few volumes here and there. The inside of the house is, however, surprisingly understated for a rock star.

Rick glances at the bookshelves, curious what Negan might be reading; he sees lots of Stephen King, James Patterson, Joe Hill, and George R.R. Martin.

Negan saunters into the kitchen and pours himself a drink: single malt with three ice cubes. "Pick your poison," he says, gesturing with a hand to the many liquor bottles on the countertop.

"I'd rather keep a clear head."

Negan scoffs like this notion is completely ridiculous. "One drink won't kill you. Live a little." He rattles the ice in his glass. "Let's be friends."

It's not like Rick actually has to drink whatever he asks for; it's about accepting the gesture. So Rick nods, sitting at one of the island barstools. "Alright. Surprise me." He sets his pack on the seat beside him.

"Now that's what I like to hear!" Negan fills a glass with ice and pours Rick a Jack and Coke. "So tell me what's in your bag of tricks there," he says, sliding the glass to Rick and pointing at the backpack with his index finger.

"Supplies." Rick takes a sip, as to not be rude. "Weapons."

"You gonna knife a ghost?"

"Doesn't work that way. But you gotta be prepared."

Negan settles in across from him. The house is eerily quiet, and Rick can feel the chill Negan was talking about earlier.

"How'd you get into this shit anyway?" Negan asks, watching him with curious eyes. "You don't look like the kind of guy who goes around chasing ghouls and goblins."

It doesn't seem fair for Rick to know so much about Negan's personal tragedies and not serve up some home-cooked sadness himself. And Negan appears to be genuinely interested in whatever Rick might say, so why not? "I lost my wife to one of them. A wendigo."

Negan's expression shatters, as though hearing this means he now shares Rick's pain. Negan's gaze is focused between them. Rick follows his eyes and realizes he's been toying with his third finger, where his wedding ring used to be.

"Shit," Negan says, and, yeah, that about sums it up. "I'm sorry."

"I lost one of my deputies in that cave, too," Rick says, and his brain can't help but go back to that moment. The moment he learned that things exist beyond comprehension, that there are reasons to be afraid of the dark. "If I didn't get lucky, I would've lost more. I wouldn't be here now."

"Deputies? You were a cop?"

"Sheriff. Back in Atlanta." A bit of a white lie, but no one outside of Georgia knows where King County is, and Atlanta's close enough.

"Well, hot damn." Negan finishes his drink. "And now you throw ghosts in jail? Is there a ghost jail? Tell me there's a ghost jail, Rick."

Rick laughs and shakes his head. He takes a drink, noticing too late that he's mirroring Negan's gestures. A sign of attraction. Damn.

"So why do you do it? I mean, I get wantin' to kill as many evil sons of bitches as you can, but…" Negan shrugs in a way that's somehow cute.

"People need answers. Cops won't touch stuff like this once it hits the fan. The higher-ups move in and shut everything down. All you get is cover-ups and red tape. But if you're just a private investigator, you're not held back by that stuff. You can help a lot of people in ways the cops can't."

"I like the way you think."

"And I needed to know how to protect my kids against what's out there."

"You got kids?"

Rick nods. He's about to ask the same of Negan but stops himself. Not only is that an incredibly sore subject, but he doesn't see any indications that Negan had children before Lucille lost the baby: no photographs or children's drawings on the fridge, no framed photos, no toys strewn across the floor. This is a man who is most likely alone. Loneliness doesn't sit well with some people.

"How're youu gonna fix my problem?" asks Negan.

Rick takes another drink to loosen his nerves. He has no idea how Negan will react to what he's about to say. "I looked into this house. Past owners, construction, all that. The only person who died here is your wife."

Negan rubs a hand over his mouth, and Rick can tell he's trying very hard not to cry. He takes a deep breath, blinking rapidly.

"I think you know that," Rick says with every bit of gentleness that he can. "And I think you know why she's here."

Negan scoffs a laugh, but it's weak. "You want me to say I was a shit husband? 'Cause considering how she ended up, I'd say that's right on the fucking mark." He pours himself another drink. He's probably a little drunk, and emotions are spilling out of him as though he has a leak.

"It's not your fault. You do the best you can, but sometimes it's not enough. Doesn't mean it falls on you."

"What about your wife? You don't blame yourself for that?"

Rick's used to talking with people who try to rattle him; as a cop, it came with the territory. But Negan's barbs have a different tang of bitterness to them, like he's saying the cruelest thing he can think of because Rick's jabbed him in a weak spot, and he needs to go off and lick his wounds.

"I used to," Rick admits. "I did. But it was wrong. I see that now. You can't keep burning that guilt over the long haul. It'll eat you up."

Negan gives Rick a grin that doesn't reach his eyes. Despite the obvious pain on his face, Negan has a lovely smile, mischievous and sweet. "Don't you worry your pretty head about me, Rick. I got my shit squared away."

Rick seriously doubts that, but he's not getting paid to be Negan's shrink. "Do you think Lucille would listen to you?"

Confusion crosses Negan's face, tightening the frayed threads around his eyes.

"Spirits like this, something's keeping them here. Is there somethin' she wants to hear, somethin' you didn't get to tell her when she was alive?"

"Are you telling me I can talk my way out of being haunted?"

"In some cases, it's possible."

Negan just looks at him.

"Every ghost is different," Rick says. "But if it's your wife, I don't think she wants to hurt you."

"Alright, let's get started."

Rick downs the rest of his drink in one go. He digs through his bag for the EMF meter. When he draws out the device, Negan asks, "What's with the Walkman?"

"It's an EMF meter. Reads electromagnetic frequencies." Rick switches on the meter and steps into the living room, following the intensity of the beeps and clicks.

"All that beeping ain't good, huh?"

Rick gives a slight nod. "There's somethin' here." He feels a cold spot, steps back. There's definitely a presence in this house, judging by the reading on the EMF. "Lucille? If you're here, can you give us a sign? Move somethin', or knock on the wall. We wanna talk with you."

Rick looks around for movement and listens intently.

Negan's voice sounds from behind him. "Uh, Rick?"

Rick turns. His glass, empty save for a few half-melted ice cubes, jiggles almost imperceptibly on the counter.

The glass launches itself towards Rick. Rick ducks out of the way with a speed that would make the Flash sit back and take notes. The glass smashes into pieces against the front door.

"Jesus," Negan breathes out. "Rick, you alright?"

Rick straightens up, his nerves tingling. "Yeah. Been through a lot worse. Try talkin' to her."

Negan glances around the room, searching for something to look at while he talks. "Lucille? Honey, I don't know what you're stickin' around for. Stayin' here is a whole lot worse than whatever's on the other side. Shit, maybe Emily's there." Nothing. Negan struggles for more words. "I know I was a shit husband, and I'm sorry. I am so fucking sorry. I should've done more for you. Maybe you'd still be…" He takes a weary breath, and Rick's heart aches for him. "But you gotta let go. I want you to be at peace. What happens when I'm gone? There won't be anything left for you here. You'll be alone."

The lights flicker as Lucille materializes in the kitchen. Negan's face loses color at the sight of her. Rick's standing behind her, so he can only imagine what Negan's seeing. She's wearing a pair of pajama pants with cats on them and a yellow tanktop: the clothes she died in, presumably. Ghosts don't get a wardrobe change in the afterlife.

"I made a mistake," Lucille sobs, and Negan looks like he's watching a puppy being tortured. "I'm not ready yet. Don't make me go, Negan. I want to stay. Please. You were right. We can adopt, and we'll be just as happy, and everything will be okay again."

Negan opens his mouth as though to say something, but no words come out. He tries again. "You wanna do a Patrick Swayze-Demi Moore thing here?" He looks at Rick. "Guess that makes you Whoopi."

"Negan," Rick warns. This interjection earns him Lucille's ire, and she turns around to glare at him. Her face isn't rotting or disfigured, nothing like the typical image of ghosts; the gruesome-looking ones died violent deaths. If it weren't for the ectoplasm pooling under her feet and the manic chirping of the EMF meter, Rick might think Lucille was actually in the room with them.

"As long as you're not at peace," Rick tells her, "he'll be in pain."

"No, I have to stay with him. He's my husband!"

"You're gonna go to a better place," says Rick.

A flare of anger ignites in Lucille's hazel eyes. "You're a liar! I can feel what's inside of you!" She swings her arm as though tossing a Frisbee, and suddenly Rick's airborne, rocketing backwards. He hits the front door with a hard slam. Broken shards from the shattered glass crunch underneath him when he lands.

"God damn, honey," Negan says, awed.

Rick shakes off the daze and clambers to his feet. "Negan! Grab my bag and let's go!" Negan hesitates for a second, then he does as Rick asks. Rick throws open the door and hurries to his car, fumbling with the key fob in his pocket and slip-sliding on the sleek stairs. He hears the distant slam of the front door then Negan's footsteps pounding the pavement behind him.

"Where are we going?" Negan asks in a gush of breath.

"Time for plan B." Rick opens the driver's door of his car and jumps inside. Negan comes around to the other side. They're peeling out of the driveway before the passenger door is closed.

"What's plan B?" Negan's holding the backpack in his lap as though it's something delicate.

"Where's Lucille buried?"

"Just what the fuck are you suggesting, Rick?"

"I thought we could reason with her, but we can't. The longer a spirit sticks around, the harder it is for them to go quietly. And all that black crap on her feet? That's ectoplasm. You gotta be one pissed-off spirit to make that stuff. So we salt and burn the bones. It's the only other way."

"Go fuck yourself. We are _not_ doing that."

"Okay." Rick hangs a U-turn on the empty road and swings back into Negan's driveway. "Then we're done here." He keeps his foot on the brake, waiting for Negan to get out. Negan just stares at Rick like he's waiting for something, too.

Negan exhales a long sigh before scrubbing a hand over his face. He seems to be going through a long series of emotions here, so Rick gives him time to work through them.

"You're sure it's the only way? It's all I got left of her." Negan's eyes shimmer. "She told me once that she wanted to be cremated, said she hated the idea of rotting underground in a box. I teased her about it. 'How would you know? You'd be dead.' But I couldn't… I couldn't do it."

Whatever Negan chooses is his own personal decision, and while Rick empathizes with the guy, he's not in the business of playing therapist and telling people how to handle their grief. That's way above his pay-grade.

"Alright, goddamn it," Negan grumbles, banging his fist against the side of the door. "We'll do it your way, and I'll do the right fucking thing and all that altruistic 'Man in the Mirror' shit. You happy now?"

Rick looks at Negan, at this ruggedly handsome man who has entrusted the most valuable thing in his world to a stranger. Negan's eyes are vast pools of grief, regret, and hope that someday he might come to accept what has happened to him. Staring at him is like looking at Rick's own reflection.

"Doesn't matter what I think," says Rick.

"I know how this works. You wanna close this out, bag another ghost."

"Of course I do, but people are more important. That's how it's gotta be."

Negan's gaze softens. After a moment, he says, "Let's get back on the road."

Negan gives Rick directions to the cemetery. As they drive, Rick's aware of how Negan steals glances at him every so often. It's a little distracting, and it doesn't help quash this unmentionable crush Rick's harboring for Negan. Rick does his best to ignore it. Considering any sort of physical intimacy with this man would be like a skid on black ice: dangerous and destructive.

"How'd you get the scar?" Negan says after a bit, referring to the silver crescent underneath Rick's right eye.

"Demon."

"Damn, I bet you got all sorts of battle scars under those clothes, huh?"

Rick flushes pink, biting back the rejoinder he'd use if this were any other situation: _You wanna find out?_

Negan doesn't dwell on it, for which Rick's thankful. "What'd you think she meant back there? About how she can feel what's inside you. Sounds pretty kinky to me."

Despite his best efforts, a small laugh pops out of Rick's mouth. It's shaky, and he hopes Negan doesn't hear the edge of nerves there. "I think she could see that I'm a hunter."

 _Or maybe she saw the way you're practically salivating over her husband._

"A hunter, huh?" Negan smirks. "Like those dicks on TV that go stomping through the woods looking for Bigfoot?"

"I like to think I'm more professional than that. I don't have a camera crew followin' me around."

"Good idea, especially if you're diggin' up graves." Negan blinks, like the craziness of what they're about to do has finally sunk in. "Shit, we're seriously gonna do that, huh?"

"It'll go faster with two people." The sun has begun its descent beneath the horizon. Night will come soon, giving them a cover of darkness to dig.

"And what's your plan if we get caught?"

"Don't get caught."

"Glad we got that cleared up."

They reach the cemetery after nightfall. The graveyard is deserted, as most cemeteries tend to be when the sun has vanished. Rick opens the trunk of the car and takes out two shovels and two flashlights. Negan, holding the backpack, peers over Rick's shoulder for a closer look at the trunk's contents: maps, jumper cables, an empty gas can, and an umbrella.

"Thought there'd be more," Negan says, sounding disappointed.

Rick lifts up the "floor" of the trunk to reveal a hidden compartment filled with firearms and knives.

"Holy shit! You're packing all kinds of heat! If you ever get pulled over, you, my friend, are mighty fucked."

"Plain sight," Rick says with a shake of his head, setting the compartment cover back into place. "But if I get pulled over, it'll be for speeding or a busted tail light. Nothing that would give them probable cause for a search. And the rumors are true: cops cut slack for one of their own." He hands Negan a shovel and a flashlight. "Lead the way."

Negan trudges through the cold darkness, moving as though on auto-pilot with the shovel slung over his shoulder. Rick follows closely behind him.

"Are zombies real?" Negan wonders in a soft voice, like he's trying not to wake the dead.

"Haven't seen one yet."

"But they could be is what you're saying."

"Guess I am."

"So it's better if we do this so she doesn't come back as some fucked-up flesh-eating monster?" Negan's talking himself into it, psyching himself up for what they're about to do. Lori had been cremated—it was something they'd discussed (like Lucille, she had misgivings about burial)—so Rick never had the pleasure of a pep talk before burning his wife's corpse.

"What happens to her after this?" asks Negan.

"She'll go. Someplace better."

"But you don't know for sure, do you?"

"Nobody does. But it's gotta be better than bein' trapped."

Negan spotlights a tombstone up ahead. "There she is."

They come upon the gravesite and begin to dig. This is always Rick's least favorite part, because rarely does he get cases where the dirt has been freshly moved. No, it's always people who've been dead for fucking centuries, and it's a Herculean effort to move the earth beneath his feet. But it's another rare occasion when he's got someone helping him dig.

"Fuck me, is there an easier way to do this?" Negan huffs.

 _Fuck me_. Rick feels something tug at his insides. "Not that I've found."

"God damn." Negan stabs the shovel into the ground, scooping out more dirt.

After what feels like hours (because it does, in fact, take at least two), the coffin is exhumed. Rick wipes the sweat off his brow with his forearm and peers into the hole. "You want me to do it?"

Negan considers this for a moment. "Nah. It's gotta be me." He hands Rick his flashlight. "Hold this." Negan lowers himself into the grave and opens the coffin. Lucille's body lies there, peaceful amongst the plush interior of her tomb. Decay has set in, turning her cracked skin a sallow green color. Her hands, folded neatly over her midsection, look as though someone stretched latex over bones.

"Oh, honey," Negan whimpers, faint and weak.

Rick's heart tumbles in his chest. He knows exactly what Negan's feeling, the devastation of seeing someone you love as a rotting hunk of flesh.

Negan turns, lifts his head to look at Rick, and the vulnerability in his eyes makes Rick's heart ache. Negan lifts a hand as though expecting Rick to offer him something. "Alright. Let's get this shitshow started."

Rick gives him a bag of salt and a pack of matches. Negan spreads the salt throughout the coffin and over Lucille's body before striking a match.

"I hope I'm doin' right by you, darlin'," Negan murmurs. The match flame casts a warm glow onto his face, illuminating the angles of his cheekbones and the slope of his nose, dancing in his damp, glistening eyes. "I wish I could'a done better for you when you were alive, but that's the fuckin' way she goes, huh? Anyway, I'm sorry. I hope you're goin' somewhere without sadness or pain. I hope you find somebody better than me and screw his brains out. You deserve at least that much." He drops the match into the casket. The fire catches with an audible sound— _foomp!—_ and tongues of flame sprout from the lining of the casket, uncoiling and crawling over her body. "Goodbye, Lucille," Negan says, and watches his wife burn.


	4. Chapter 4

The drive back to Negan's house is quiet, and Negan has plenty of time to think about everything that's happened, though he's almost numb to it all. It's not like he killed Lucille, he reminds himself. By all legal definitions, she was deader than dead. He saw that when he opened the coffin. And being stuck as a ghost sure ain't living. At least, that's his story, and he's sticking to it. He has to believe he did the right thing; otherwise he has to face that he had a second chance with her and blew it.

 _I made a mistake,_ she'd spirit was tethered to this world out of regret. Christ, what must her final moments have been like? Did she lie there in that bathtub, her body shutting down, and slip away in peace? Or had she realized too late that her problems were not insurmountable? Negan told her over and over that they could adopt a baby—or, hell, even ten babies—and their family would be no different than if she'd popped them out herself. He reminded her that the inability to bear children didn't make her less of a woman or a human being, that losing the baby wasn't her fault. She hadn't listened. Maybe, as she slipped into the blackness, she finally believed him. But it was too late.

 _No, don't go there, you fucking idiot. Keep that shit out of your head._

"You alright?" asks Rick.

"I'm peachy-fucking-keen, Rick," Negan says, sounding the complete opposite of fine.

Rick is quiet for a moment, then: "Do you wanna talk about it?" To his credit, Rick's trying to be considerate, but talking about feelings doesn't sound like something he's used to or even enjoys.

"Right now, all I want is some goddamn food. I'm starved. Why don't you stick around? I'll make us spaghetti."

"Alright," Rick agrees. without consideration or hesitation. "You a good cook?"

"I could probably make it to the final round on Chopped."

"Good enough for me."

During the remainder of the drive, Negan surveys the various items in Rick's car: cell phone chargers, packs of gum, spare change, hand wipes, a box of cheese crackers (probably for the kids), and a car seat in the back (definitely for a kid). Hanging from the rear-view mirror: a pine tree air freshener, a bracelet made out of snail shells, and a pentagram necklace. It's as though the car contains a perfect mix of Rick's personal and professional life.

Once they're back at Negan's house, Rick grabs the EMF meter off the floor where he'd dropped it and searches for a signal. Negan doesn't hear anything coming from the machine. That's good, right?

"Is it broken?"

"Nah. Just quiet."

"Does that mean there's no… presence?"

Rick nods, stuffing the meter into his rucksack. "Why don't you show me the basement? You said the ghost never went in there."

Negan leads him through the dining room, to the door underneath the staircase. He opens the door and flicks on the wall switch. Rick takes two stairs, running his palms over the handrails. He taps one with his fingernail, hears a metallic clinking sound.

"What kind of metal is this?"

"Iron, I think."

Rick nods as though confirming a long-held suspicion. "That's why she couldn't come down here." Upon seeing Negan's confused look, Rick says, "Ghosts work on electromagnetic energy. Iron grounds the charge."

* * *

Halfway through their spaghetti dinner, Rick says, "Never had dinner with a client before."

"You did a bang-up job, Rick. You deserve a little extra."

They're sitting at the dining room table. It's the first time Negan has shared a meal with someone in his own house since Lucille was alive.

"Well, I appreciate it," Rick says. "It's good."

Negan drains his glass of whiskey. "Don't get all gushy. It's just spaghetti."

Rick offers a shy smile. "How'd you get started with music?" he wonders, sounding genuinely curious.

Negan has been asked this question countless times in interviews, but he doesn't mind answering it again when he's got Rick's sea-blue eyes watching him. "I was twelve when I heard AC/DC for the first time, and that shit blew my mind. Then I discovered Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, Bob Seger… Music was my life-blood back then, gave me a reason to get up in the morning when life kept punching me in the dick. Playing made me feel like a real person again."

Rick takes a long pull on his drink: a regular Coke this time, since he's driving home later. Don't want him getting pulled over with all those weapons in the trunk. "So how long have you been playing? I mean, in the band."

"Almost thirty fucking years. Can you believe that shit?" Negan laughs. "We were a trio at first, at the tail end of the eighties. Simon answered my ad for musicians, and he brought along Fat Joey, the guy who became our first bassist."

"What happened to him?"

"He quit in"—Negan thinks for a moment—"'95, '96, somewhere around there. We had a revolving door of bassists until Dwight came along later. Then we added Jesus, and I brought Eugene on board for our most recent album. And now here we are."

"Here we are," Rick murmurs thoughtfully.

"But enough boring shit. What made you wanna be a cop?"

"Sheriff," Rick corrects for the second time with a wry smile. Now he's just being a prick.

Negan rolls his eyes. "Whatever."

"I wanted to help people. Wanted to make a difference. But after I lost Lori, it was too dangerous."

Negan cocks his head and then his eyebrow at Rick. "But huntin' down monsters isn't? I think we've got different definitions of dangerous."

"Monsters I get. People are unpredictable. There's a whole department in the FBI full of people who figure out how creeps think. And they still get stumped sometimes. At least with monsters, there's lore passed down over centuries that tells you everything."

"Is that all it is? Just research?"

"And a lot of trial and error. But you use the research to protect yourself while you work it out. It's like hunting any other animal."

"Maybe I'm playing devil's advocate here," Negan says, leaning forward, "but how are monsters less dangerous than people?"

"You got this fancy security system on your house, but that won't stop a determined criminal. He can sneak in through a window or dig around the front yard for a spare key. Or con his way in through a neighbor or landlord. Or you could let him in because you trust him, and he takes advantage of that. But spirits can't move through a salt ring. Demons can't cross a devil's trap. They have to follow the rules."

"You tryin' to scare me?"

"Just stating facts. Sorry if I scared you."

"After today, it'll take more than a half-assed story to get me spooked."

"I could tell you all sorts of things." Rick's Southern drawl turns 'things' into 'thangs,' and Negan adores it. "But I don't think you've had a good night's sleep in a while."

"Why start now?"

* * *

After dinner, as Rick's about to leave, Negan hands him a jewel-cased CD of _Hearts Still Beating._

"Do yourself a favor and listen to some real music," Negan tells him, half-joking.

Rick stares at the jewel case in his hand. "Do you keep copies of this around to hand out to people?"

"Like you wouldn't?"

Rick's lips twitch into a smile. He's standing in the doorway, backpack slung over his shoulder, and Negan wants to beg him to stay the night. He could make up some excuse about how he's worried the ghost might return, or pretend like Rick's campfire stories got under his skin. But Rick would see right through that, and Negan's teetering on shaky ground already. Any more and he'll fall into something he can't talk his way out of. Rick's observant enough to recognize Negan's attraction to him (subtlety has never been Negan's strongest suit), but he would write it off as a side-effect of loneliness. A distraction created in the wake of losing Lucille a second time.

And maybe Negan _is_ too fucked up to see that right now.

"Take care of yourself," Rick tells him. "May not seem like it now, but it does get easier." A curl of his hair has shaken loose, dangling against his forehead, and Negan really wants to brush it away. "And thanks for dinner."

Negan nods, his throat dangerously dry. He watches until Rick gets into the car.

That night, Negan lies on the fold-out couch in the darkness of the basement. He isn't ready to go upstairs and sleep in the bed that once held two. He tried it once before, and he could feel her ghost surrounding him; even after what he did tonight, he doubts that will change.

Negan can't get Rick's face out of his mind's eye. Desire grips him like a vise, and it's all he can do to keep his mind off the idea of Rick sliding between his legs and fucking him. Negan groans and squirms. His cock responds to every shift and slide against the sheets.

 _Fuck you, brain. You're a goddamn traitor._

He wraps a hand around his cock and, fuck, it's so good he actually groans out loud. He strokes and tugs, telling himself it's not a fucking crime to jerk off when your wife is dead and you haven't been touched in half a year. A man has needs, God damn it, and if their roles were reversed and it was Lucille lying here instead of him he'd be urging her to go for it. Life, as Negan has recently learned, is short as fuck, and can end any minute. And it's not like Rick's going to know. Negan will probably never see Rick again, and what a tragic fucking thought that is.

Negan's thoughts are a frenzied whirlwind of fantasies: Rick sucking his cock, his scruff scraping Negan's thighs. Negan plowing Rick from behind and kissing the slope of his back. Rick's stunned little moans when Negan slips two fingers inside of him. Then he's bursting hot and fast through the honeyed sting of his orgasm. He lies there, sweaty and sticky as he catches his breath.

"Shit," he sighs, alone in the dark, and thinking—not for the first time—that he is righteously fucked.

* * *

Rick sends Negan a text the following day: _Heard your album. Reminds me of the stuff my son listens to. This is Rick btw_

Negan shoots back almost immediately: _**Then your kid has good fuckin taste. This is Negan btw**_

Even through text, Negan's charm crackles like fireworks. Rick's lying on the couch, enjoying a day of relaxation while he has the house to himself. Carl is at school, and Judith is with Maggie, Glenn, and baby Hershel at the park. Rick stares at his phone and debates his next move. Part of him is fully aware of Negan's attraction to him; nothing about Negan is subtle, and he was giving off all sorts of signs last night: eye contact that lasted an iota too long, easy smiles that warmed Rick's blood, leaning forward like he was oh-so-interested in what Rick had to say, trying to impress Rick with his music. And the teeth-licking thing was pretty overt, as was the spaghetti dinner.

Rick was raised in the South, where cooking a special meal for someone was a gesture of love or, at least, camaraderie. His mother would make golden-crusted peach pies for new neighbors and holiday dinners. She brought cheesy casseroles and meatloaves to those in mourning or celebrating a birth. His father hosted backyard barbecues and picnics for their neighbors and friends. According to Rick's upbringing, cooking was a way to show someone you cared about them. So imagine his surprise when Negan served him home-cooked spaghetti instead of ordering out.

But the other part of Rick, the part not controlled by lust or the carnal whims of his cock, doesn't want to jump into anything too quickly. Lori's death carved a deep wound into Rick, a wound that's still healing almost two years later, and he's already looking to stick his dick into someone else. Is that right? Wrong? His logical side knows there's no timetable on grief, and that Lori would encourage him to find happiness without her, but Rick isn't sure he likes what propositioning Negan at this stage would say about himself.

Because as much as Rick wants to believe his dalliances with Negan would remain strictly physical, he knows things wouldn't stay that way. Someone like Negan would be easy to fall in love with; he shares Rick's pain, he's goddamn gorgeous to boot, and, judging by some of his lyrics, he's incredibly sensitive for a rugged dude with a leather jacket and a dirty mouth.

Rick glances back to his phone. Negan started all of this with his flirty jokes and glances and his goddamn spaghetti. Rick can't accept that gesture of kindness and not reciprocate. It would be un-Southern.

Rick types: _Are you busy?_

He watches the dots as Negan replies: _**You know I got fuck-all to do anymore**_

Rick: _It's my turn to make you spaghetti_

Rick waits for an answer. His heart becomes a rubber ball, ricocheting in his chest. What if he's read this all wrong? Maybe Negan making him dinner was merely a gesture of hospitality, postponing his loneliness after banishing his dead wife's ghost from the house.

Rick's so wrapped up in his own dizzying panic that he jumps when the phone rings in his hand.

Negan is calling him.

When Rick answers the call, the first thing he hears is Negan's whiskey-smooth voice: "You askin' me on a date, Grimes?"

The rubber ball smashes into Rick's ribs. This feels like the most important question he's ever had to answer since he made his vows with Lori. And it doesn't feel wrong when he says, "Guess I am."

Negan laughs a tender sound that melts away Rick's anxieties. "Just don't expect me to put out. I ain't easy."

* * *

Rick has lunch on the table by the time Negan arrives. As the father of a four-year-old and a picky teenager, Rick has mastered macaroni and cheese in ten different ways, so that's what he makes, albeit a spruced-up version that's the envy of every potluck. And Negan wasn't breaking any new ground with spaghetti: one of the most basic dishes in the entire culinary landscape. Two ingredients, three if you count meat, which Negan didn't even bother with, so Rick doesn't worry about being judged for his lack of creativity.

Negan shows up at Rick's door wearing the leather jacket and jeans he wore when they first met; it's possible Negan doesn't own any other clothes. "What the fuck is up, Rick?" Negan asks with gusto.

Rick takes a quick glance over Negan's shoulder, expecting to see some jacked-up monster truck parked in his driveway. But it seems Negan drives—or has chosen out of the collection of cars that Rick assumes he owns—a black '73 Dodge Charger.

Negan grins, amused by Rick's awkward hesitation. "You gonna invite me in or just stand there?"

Rick steps aside and lets Negan enter. Negan looks around at the interior of the house. One of the biggest differences between Rick's and Negan's houses—apart from the sheer size—is how lived-in Rick's place is. Judith's colorful crayon drawings hang on the fridge alongside appointment cards and grocery lists. A chalkboard on the wall measures Judith's and Carl's heights, and Carl has added doodles of Finn and Jake from Adventure Time in the blank space. A bin of Judith's toys sits beside the couch. Carl's Xbox controller lies on the coffee table.

"Isn't this picture-perfect?" Negan says. "How old are the little tykes?"

"Judith's four. Carl's fourteen."

"How old were they when…" Negan doesn't finish, but he doesn't need to.

"It was almost two years ago."

Negan nods solemnly. "They handling it okay?"

"About as well as you'd expect." Rick turns the question around on him. "How are you holding up?"

Negan blinks, momentarily taken off-guard that Rick would give a shit. "Well, it's quiet."

"You should play some music."

* * *

Over lunch, Negan says, "Alright, be straight with me, Rick. What'd you think of the album? 'Cause you never actually told me what you thought. I'm curious."

They're sitting across from each other at the dining room table. Rick's house is toasty warm, so Negan has shed his leather jacket over the back of the chair, revealing an AC/DC t-shirt underneath. He's fingering the neck of his beer bottle in a suggestive way; Rick can't stop watching.

"I don't know," Rick says with a shrug. "It was… good." That's the least descriptive word he can think of. He's buying time, because he doesn't want to tell Negan he stayed parked in his driveway for four minutes yesterday, caught off-guard by how honest "No Man's Land" is:

 _I've been running in circles, round and around,_

 _Let me off this merry-go-round,_

 _I've been here before, and I wanna let it go,_

 _I don't know what to do,_

 _I've been drinkin' down every cure I find,_

 _But nothing's gonna save my soul,_

 _Welcome to no man's land._

According to the liner notes, the album was released years ago, so Negan must be somewhat of an expert on pain and human suffering.

"It seemed kind of personal," Rick adds. "Sometimes I felt like an intruder. What was going on in your life then?" Is he allowed to ask?

The cocky grin on Negan's face softens into a fond, wistful half-smile. "I was learning to like myself. The first half of the album is me realizing how miserable I was and breaking out of it. The second half is all _carpe diem_ , baby. Lucille helped me see who I really am. 'Cause that mag-fucking-nificent woman married me. She was everything good in the world, and she still chose me. Must mean I'm not too bad."

"Somebody told you otherwise?" Rick might be stepping too close to sensitive territory here, but he can't help it. He wants to know more.

Negan hesitates for a moment, ultimately deciding that hedging his response would be unnecessary with Rick. "My shitbag deadbeat of a dad, then my first wife."

"First wife? How many have you had?"

"Just the two."

Rick's surprised, though he shouldn't be. He'd assumed that Negan, like most rock stars, left behind a trail of groupies and failed marriages before Lucille came along. Not the kindest assumption, in retrospect.

But Rick is curious about the way darkness settled on Negan like an overcoat when he mentioned his first wife. "She cheated on you?"

Negan spits out a bitter laugh. "Among other things. Shit, that's not even the worst of it. I know now that marrying her was me trying to get the approval I never got from my dad. All that textbook shit. But back then I was just a stupid son of a bitch desperate to please. And she milked the fuck out of that. Every time I was proud of somethin' I did, she'd cut me down. She'd say it wasn't that great, and that I shouldn't be content with mediocrity. She hated the music I played. 'It should be more than vapid party rock for idiots.' Like excuse the fuck out of me for not making songs ten minutes long with fifty different time signatures.

"She'd complain about me going on tour because she felt like I was 'abandoning' her—even though it was my fucking job and she knew that going in—and then when I'd call from the road she wouldn't answer. Most bands gripe about going on tour, but I fucking loved it. I didn't want to go home."

Rick listens and briefly considers reaching across the table and placing a hand over Negan's own.

"Everybody told me she was god-awful, but I didn't think she was all bad," says Negan. "She had good days. Sometimes she said the right words or did the right things. And when she didn't, I figured it was my fault. When Jesus joined up with us, he saw through her shit right away. He asked me if she ever let me say no to anything. And I couldn't answer that, 'cause I was embarrassed to tell him the truth. But on one of our tours, I sent her this really nice paint set for her birthday, 'cause she was a pretentious fucking Van Gogh wannabe, but let it be known I was a damn supportive husband. And she just let it sit at the post office 'til it got sent back. Twice. That was the moment I realized my wife didn't give a fuck about me. It landed on top of all the other resentments I'd built up over the years and just"—he makes an explosion gesture with his hands—"boom. Done."

Rick takes all of this in, feeling emotionally exhausted, like he's lived the volatile years of Negan's marriage along with him.

"So Lucille was a breath of fresh fucking air," Negan says in summation. He takes a quick drink, then says, "Well, go on. Ask. I know you're just dyin' to know."

"Know what?" Rick has no clue what Negan's after.

"Why it took me years to wake the fuck up and get out of there."

Rick shakes his head. "No, I'm not thinkin' that at all." He saw a disheartening amount of abusive and just plain unpleasant relationships during his time on the force. It's not hard for him to imagine why someone might stay; fear is always a powerful motivator.

Negan gives him an appraising look. His dim green eyes stay on Rick, and Rick feels naked underneath Negan's gaze. "Then what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking I'm glad you found Lucille, someone who was good to you."


	5. Chapter 5

Rick kisses Negan on their third date. Negan's not expecting it at all, but as someone with a good deal of his shit together, Rick is more likely to take risks. At least that's the working theory when Rick leans in for a short kiss that gets Negan pulling hard on the front of his shirt. Rick makes a tiny noise of surprise against Negan's mouth, like he didn't expect Negan to be into this. They're making out on Rick's couch in the middle of the day while tendrils of booze shiver in Negan's blood; he feels young again, as though he can simply drop the past behind him like the baggage it is.

Rick breaks away for a moment to assess Negan's face. Negan can't help but grin at Rick's bewildered expression. "Goddamn," Negan says, which just about sums it up.

Their fourth date is pizza and Netflix in Negan's basement, and afterward Negan sneaks a hand down the front of Rick's jeans. Rick looks at Negan, his eyes wide, then at the way Negan's stroking him, and shakes out a breathy, "Oh…"

The fifth date is back at Rick's place, another lunch. Negan's helping Rick with the dishes when the front door unlocks. Startled by the interruption, Rick drops the plate he's holding into the water-logged sink; Negan listens as the door opens and Rick's kids come shuffling through.

"Dad, we're home!" Carl announces.

"Hi, Daddy!" Judith chirps and waves at them. She's holding Carl's hand, tugging insistently, but Carl isn't letting her go just yet, because he's dropping his backpack by the door and checking his phone with his free hand.

Rick hasn't shoved Negan out of the way or tried to hide him in a comical manner, so Negan assumes it's okay that he's here. He's going to meet Rick's family.

When Carl looks up from his phone, he notices Negan and Rick standing in the kitchen. "Oh. Hey. I didn't know you had friends, Dad."

Negan laughs, and the way Rick frowns makes it even funnier.

Carl sees his father's forlorn expression. "I mean, y'know, besides our neighbors."

"Let me go," Judith whines. Clearly, she's had enough of Carl's helicopter brothering for the day. So Carl relinquishes her hand, and she goes running towards Rick. Rick scoops her up in his arms.

"Hey," he starts, "how was your day with Aunt Maggie—"

But Judith has zero interest in Rick right now. She's reaching toward Negan and smiling at him, the way little kids do before they're properly terrified of strangers. "Hi! What's your name?"

"Negan. What's yours?"

"Judith."

"So you're Judith! Your daddy's told me a lot about you. How old are you?"

"Four and a half!" Judith says proudly, holding up four chubby fingers. "How old are _you_?"

Negan chuckles and pretends to count on his fingers. "I don't have enough fingers for that, darlin'."

"You're funny," Judith giggles.

"Well, thank you, doll. I try."

Judith squirms in Rick's arms, so he sets her down, and she goes toddling to the bin of toys by the couch.

Carl approaches the kitchen island with tentative curiosity. He's studying Negan's face, trying to remember where he's seen him before. "You're Negan? As in Negan & the Saviors?"

A grin spreads across Negan's mouth. "Give the kid a gold star!"

Rick rolls his eyes with good humor and a twitch of a smile.

Carl looks both awestruck and confused. His gaze darts from Rick to Negan, like he can't figure out how in the world his father would ever be friends with a rock star. He settles on Rick. "Did you hire him to be my guitar teacher?"

"No," Rick says, like he's offended Carl would even suggest it. "He's a friend."

"Are you kidding? Show me what you got." Negan's fully aware he's saying this to get a rise out of Rick, but he's not opposed to the idea of helping the kid learn a few things. It would have been nice to have a guitar teacher or mentor instead of flying blind when he was Carl's age.

Carl blinks, bewildered at Negan's willingness to tutor him. He looks to Rick for permission. "Can I?"

"Yeah, go ahead," Rick sighs, though he doesn't sound too put out about the interruption to their date.

"Awesome!" Now Carl's rushing up the stairs, and Rick looks amazed at how quickly his date with Negan went off the rails.

Negan slides an arm around Rick's waist and tugs him closer. Rick's cheeks flush. "Don't worry, Pretty Ricky. I still like you."

* * *

Carl's room is decked out with rock posters and action figures. Above the dresser in the corner hangs a Metallica poster. Sandwiching the window are both Nirvana and Green Day. On the far wall, above the bed, are Fall Out Boy and Foo Fighters.

"Good taste, kid," says Negan.

"Thanks," Carl says, a little awkwardly. "Did you really wanna hear me play or were you just joking?"

"I really do." Negan sits in Carl's computer chair, swivels so he's facing him. "Impress me."

Carl drags out his guitar case from underneath the bed. It's a simple acoustic guitar with nylon strings, at which Carl plucks nervously to test the tuning. The D string is a little off; Negan hears it, but he wonders if Carl will notice; the kid's ear might not be trained yet.

But Carl is already ahead of the curve; he turns the peg just enough to put the string back into place. Negan smiles to himself as though Carl has passed some sort of test.

He half-expects Carl to play one of the Saviors' songs, and the other half anticipates something cliche that every beginner learns: "Smoke on the Water," "Wonderwall," or a clumsy mess of "Stairway to Heaven." Carl begins to play the opening of "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica, and Negan almost wants to laugh, because goddamn, that's cliche too. But Carl isn't terrible, and he's earnest, which counts for a hell of a lot. Negan watches Carl's fingers move over the fretboard, and he hears in his head where the notes go. Carl's rendition isn't perfect—sometimes there's a hiccup of hesitation—but it's in the ballpark.

Carl stops at the solo. "That's all I've learned so far. Of that song, I mean. I can play other stuff."

"I'm impressed you didn't play something of mine."

"I didn't want to look like a suck-up."

"Smart move. So what do you want me to teach you? You seem like you know what you're doing."

Carl smiles at the compliment.

"Shit, once you learn chords A through G you're pretty much set." Negan rises from the chair and sits beside Carl on the edge of the bed. He holds out his hands for the guitar, and Carl gives it to him. "I came up with this a couple weeks ago. You know the chords already."

Negan shows him the progression of a simple chorus riff, mixing up G, C, and E minor before bringing it home to D. He plays it through twice and names off the chords as they go before letting Carl try. Carl, evidently, soaked that shit up like a sponge, because he plays it back without a hitch, even remembering the switch-up of the main chords in the second part. But it's an easy song; Negan stopped trying to be the next Jimmy Page decades ago.

"Hot damn," Negan says, grinning. "A little practice and you could take my place on the next tour."

Carl huffs a sheepish laugh. "You're writing music again?"

"It seems to be going that way."

"Even after…"—Carl can't seem to find a tactful way to approach Negan's personal tragedies—"what happened?"

"Some of the best music comes from the aftermath of terrible shit happening to good people. Where do you think most of our hit singles came from?"

"What about 'Party'?"

"I said _most_."

Carl considers this as he absently plucks at the guitar strings.

"You wanna be a rock star when you grow up?" Negan asks.

"I dunno, maybe. I kinda wanna make video games, too. We'll see what happens."

"Keep your options open, kid. And maybe if things don't go your way, I can write a couple songs for you."

* * *

 _February 2014_

It takes about a month for Negan to become a regular presence in the Grimes household. He comes through the door tonight to the excited faces of Judith and Carl.

"Hey, Negan," Carl says, looking up from his phone.

Judith rushes up to Negan, and he sweeps her into his arms.

"There's my princess!" Negan says over her peals of giggles. "What'd you do today?"

"I drew a pony, and Daddy put it on the fridge! Come see!" She grabs his large hand in both of her tiny ones and pulls him into the kitchen.

Rick watches with hearts in his eyes. Though he hadn't given the concept much thought until Negan came along, Rick had doubts about dating again. He worried his family situation would scare off potential partners; someone younger might not be keen on beginning the relationship with children in the mix, and someone with children of their own would have to ensure all the kids got along. And then there was the peril of a new person in Rick's life earning Judith and Carl's approval.

Negan, it seems, has earned their affection in spades. Rick has passed by Carl's bedroom door many times in the past month and heard him scratching out some of the Saviors' riffs. And Judith, well…

"See?" Judith's pointing a chubby finger at her colorful drawing on the fridge.

"That is beautiful," Negan says with emphasis. He's crouched at her level, admiring the artwork along with her. "You're quite the little artist, huh?"

Judith nods proudly. "Uh-huh! Daddy says I could make cartoons when I grow up!"

"I think so too. When you get rich and famous, don't forget your uncle Negan." He ruffles her hair, making her laugh.

Rick must be staring at this precious display, because Carl nudges him and says, "Dad? You're _swooning_."

Rick scoffs like that's impossible. "What? No, I'm not." Carl's about to point out that Rick's face is the color of a boiling lobster, but Rick cuts him off. "Go set the table."

Dinner consists of chicken-fried steak, which Rick convinces Judith to eat by telling her "it's just a big, flat chicken nugget." With a helping of macaroni and cheese on the side, Judith isn't complaining about the menu.

"Wish I could make somethin' a little more grown-up for you," Rick says to Negan over the meal. "But she's picky."

"Don't you fret over me. I'm easy to please. I'm _real_ easy, Rick." Negan winks and grins, as though Rick didn't catch the double meaning. "I'm surprised you haven't figured that out already."

Rick cannot control his blood vessels to save his damn life. His face goes red again, in plain sight of everyone at the table.

Carl sighs and shakes his head, but there's no heat to it, just the typical teenage embarrassment.

"I remember you tellin' me you weren't," Rick reminds Negan.

"I was flirting with you. I guess that went way over your head."

With the way Negan's smirking at him, Rick almost believes that.

"Carl, you might be glad to know me and the guys're planning on gettin' back into the studio soon," Negan says.

Carl's expression brightens. "Really?"

Rick has no idea at which point Carl became interested in Negan's records. Like most parents, he is pretty much oblivious to his teenager's musical tastes.

"Yeah, I've got some great stuff. And I think they'll be glad the album isn't such a"—Negan stops himself before dropping a word that's not G-rated—"huge downer anymore."

"Does that mean you're gonna tour?" Carl's already planning ahead, readying himself for another abandonment by this new parental figure.

"Just a couple months. Touring's a young man's game, and we're gettin' pretty old. Well, I am, at least." Negan chuckles.

"Yeah, how old _are_ you?" asks Carl, as though he has wondered this for quite some time.

"Carl," Rick warns.

"Just ballpark it."

"Older than your dad, but not old enough to start gettin' discounts at the movies," Negan says.

Carl seems somewhat satisfied with this answer.

After dinner, Carl helps Rick clean up the kitchen. Judith has practically dragged Negan upstairs to color with her, so Carl doesn't have to whisper when he asks Rick, "So, are you and Negan, like, dating? 'Cause you have a super-obvious crush on him."

Rick feels his cheeks flush, and he knows there's no point in denying it. "Yeah."

Carl sputters out a laugh that's more like a hiccup. "What do you think Mom would say?" His tone is soft and inquiring, which tells Rick he's not asking to be cruel.

Rick has grappled with that since the moment he realized his feelings for Negan went way past platonic. Though Rick would weigh in occasionally when Lori ogled some male actor ("I don't get all the fuss about Johnny Depp," he remembers saying to her at one point), his attraction to men was never something they actually sat down and discussed. If Lori picked up on it, it must not have bothered her.

"I hope she'd want me to find someone else to be happy with," says Rick after a moment of consideration. "That's what I'd want for her, at least. What do you think?" If Carl is uncomfortable with Negan being more than just Rick's friend, Rick would like to know now before things get too serious between them.

Carl shrugs and dumps the dishes in the sink. "It's kinda weird, but at least he's cool. I mean, he's an actual real rock star. And Judith's crazy about him."

Judith likes everyone, but that's besides the point. Rick sees what Carl's driving at.

"I thought it'd be harder," Rick says, rinsing off plates and sticking them in the dishwasher. "Seein' somebody… after what happened. But it's been real easy with Negan."

"He knows what you do? The monster stuff?"

"How do you think we met?"

Carl considers that. "What happens when he leaves for the tour?"

Rick shrugs a shoulder. Negan can leave in the small ways, because Rick knows he won't leave in the big ones. "He'll come back."

At bedtime, Judith demands that Negan read her a story. Negan obliges, pointing at various books on her shelf and reading off the titles before she ultimately decides on "Owl at Home." Rick lingers near the open door and listens in as Negan reads to Judith. Negan fits so seamlessly into their lives, as though filling a space meant for him. He's too loud and vulgar to be much like Lori, but they do share the commonalities that count: caring, honest, and good with the kids.

Negan has a spot in the Grimes family if he wants it.

Judith falls asleep halfway through the book. Rick peeks through the doorway, watches Negan switch off Judith's bedside lamp. The nightlight flicks on automatically, casting glowing stars on the ceiling.

"She loves you," Rick says when Negan leaves the bedroom.

Negan looks a little surprised to see Rick standing there. A shy smile curls across his lips. "What can I say? Chicks dig me."

Rick tucks himself closer, his arms encircling Negan's waist. "Oh yeah?" Negan's hands find their way into the back pockets of Rick's jeans. Rick stares at Negan's smirky mouth for a moment before capturing it beneath his own. Kissing Negan always sends a spike of adrenaline through Rick's blood that quickly melts into the warmth of security and comfort. The scratch of his scruff, the squeeze of his hands, the solid wall of his body. Negan feels like home.

"Seems like you're pretty crazy about me too," Negan murmurs around the kiss, his hips leaning into Rick just enough so he can feel the hard press of an erection against his thigh.

"Mm, feeling's mutual." Rick reaches down between them and cups Negan through his jeans.

Negan's grin widens. His gaze pierces straight through Rick. "You gonna do somethin' about it?"

Rick takes him to bed. Until now, their sexual encounters have been brief handjobs on the couch or quick rutting through their clothes. Nothing near what Rick wants to do with Negan. But he's a little worried about what that giving of the body might mean: that Lori is truly gone, because Rick would never cheat on her. And he's never been with a man before, which brings up a whole new set of anxieties regarding his sexual performance.

Fuck it. He'll figure it out as they go.

Rick's lying underneath Negan on the bed he used to share with Lori, his legs spread invitingly as he nips and licks at Negan's mouth. Negan works on the buttons of Rick's shirt, his hands sliding in to touch the skin beneath. When he gets Rick's shirt open, Negan braces himself against the mattress as he takes a long, surveying look.

"Fuck," Negan sighs. He kisses Rick's chest before working his way down. He stops, breathing hot over Rick's stomach. "You're not as scarred up as I thought."

Rick eases a hand into Negan's hair. "You disappointed?"

"You're careful. I like that." He finds Rick's mouth again and rolls them over. Rick's on top now, and…

 _Oh_.

Now there's an idea.

Rick never considered it before, certain Negan would want to take the lead in their bedroom activities. But there's an allure in the idea of sticking his dick into Negan.

As though reading his mind, Negan grapples with Rick's belt. "C'mon, Rick," he says, his voice like cool water in the summer heat. "Are you as good in bed as I think you are?"

Rick quirks an eyebrow. "You think about that a lot?"

"Fuck yeah. You don't?"

"Hard not to."

Negan grins, then his grin falters a little as he struggles with Rick's belt. The leather is thick and wide and somewhat unyielding. "Jesus, you sure as fuck don't make it easy to get into your pants, Grimes."

"Speak for yourself." Negan wears at least three belts at any given time, including the one on his leather jacket.

Rick decides to help Negan out and unbuckles his belt. Negan gets his jeans open, and Rick works on Negan's jacket. Undressing Negan is like unwrapping a present, and Rick does it quickly, eager to see him bare. He's greeted with dark hair and toned muscle and tattoo ink. There's an elaborate tattoo of a cross on Negan's left arm, near the shoulder. The same spot on his right arm depicts a baseball bat wrapped with barbed-wire, a ribbon with the name Lucille curled around it. An elegant script on the side of his left forearm reads: Emily.

Rick feels profoundly saddened for a moment at this reminder of Negan's losses, but Negan isn't having any of it. He reaches into one of the pockets of his jacket and flicks a small pack of lube at Rick. The packet smacks Rick in the chest, then drops onto Negan's stomach.

"Nice reflexes."

Rick rolls his eyes. "Shut up."

Negan laughs.

The rest of their clothes are discarded quickly, excitement and passion building to a boil. Rick eases between Negan's legs and tests lube-slicked fingers at his entrance. Negan purrs a sound of contentment, his hips pushing forward for more.

"Fuck, c'mon," he groans. "This ain't my first rodeo, cowboy."

"You've been with a guy before?" Rick asks, watching Negan's reactions to his touch; Negan bites his lip and slides a heel across the bed.

"I don't kiss and tell. But Lucille was pretty kinky."

This fills Rick's head with images he's going to enjoy later, but his cock stiffens at the mere suggestion, which Negan absolutely notices.

"That turn you on?"

Rick shifts, trying to relieve some of the pressure. "A little."

"Doesn't look little to me." Negan's trying to rile Rick up, and it's working, because Rick abandons the slow tease of his fingers—Negan's wide open for him already—and slides his way in. Negan growls a low, satisfied noise, then Rick's buried inside of him, and Negan's teeth sink into the fleshy slope of Rick's neck near his shoulder. "That's more like it," Negan sighs, his hands gripping Rick's back, and Rick feels like he'll burn up.

Rick can only compare this to his first time with Lori, and being with Negan is so wildly different there's almost no comparison despite the act being somewhat similar. Negan rocks into him, aggressive and demanding. His mouth huffs swears cut through with Rick's name until Rick kisses the words out of him. Negan's calloused fingers drag down Rick's back, nails scraping and carving crescents into his skin when Rick fucks him just right. Negan digs his heels into the hollows behind Rick's knees, and the subtle quake of his body tells Rick he's close. Then the shaky way Negan groans Rick's name removes all doubt.

Rick curls a hand around Negan's cock, tugging along with the rhythm of his hips until Negan's shuddering and spurting over his stomach. He's gasping and cursing, going impossibly tight, and there's no way Rick's lasting through that. His orgasm takes everything out of him, and Rick slumps against Negan, trying to catch his breath and ride out the wave.

Negan holds him close. "Mm, I could get used to this."

Rick could, too.

Rick rolls off of Negan and lands beside him. Negan curls an arm around Rick, as though unwilling to let him go so easily. Rick takes in the sweat stippled on Negan's brow and the hooded, dreamy look in his eyes and the lazy curve of his mouth, and he knows that Negan has fallen for him.

"You should stay," says Rick. "Have breakfast with us."

A look of shocked wonder crosses Negan's face. Is this an offer rarely extended to him, or is he surprised it's coming from Rick?

"You gettin' soft on me?"

"Maybe. But I don't think you mind."

Negan holds him tighter.


	6. Chapter 6

"Well, damn, look at you!" Simon exclaims when Negan arrives at the recording studio the following week. "You're lookin' good!"

"You are exhibiting what one might refer to as a 'glow,'" Eugene agrees.

Negan rolls his eyes, but deep down he's a little flattered by the compliments. "Don't get all mushy on me."

Jesus ignores this, because getting mushy is one of his finest qualities. "You look healthy. Happy."

"That'll happen when you're getting laid on the regular," Negan says. He's downplaying the domesticity of his relationship with Rick; he doesn't want to hear any accusations that he hasn't waited long enough to start dating again. If Negan feels like he's ready, who the fuck is anyone else to say?

"Nice," Dwight says. "You met somebody, or is this a buffet sort of situation?"

"I have a new policy: I don't kiss and tell. Now let's get to fuckin' work."

They're in Simon's upstate New York home studio to record the new album. Negan has a total of fifteen songs written, and while some of them are dark and mournful, there are an equal amount of light spots throughout, borne out of Negan's new relationship with Rick. Five of the tracks are mainly Negan and his acoustic guitar, but the rest of the album is a return to form: driving hard rock with killer riffs, and pop-guitar earworms.

Throughout the three weeks it takes to record and refine the material, Negan develops a case of stage fright when he thinks about Rick hearing the album. Would Rick cringe at the sappy, acoustic piece "Love is Blind," sensing that it was written about him? And, oh fuck, "Get Freaky" is three and a half minutes of how much Negan wants to bang Rick. Sure, he could claim it's a generic song about fucking, but _Rick would know._ It's possible Rick only enjoys Negan's music because he hasn't become a part of it yet. Lucille was thrilled to be the inspiration behind most of _Hearts Still Beating_ , but Rick seems like he might be embarrassed about it despite being one of two people who knows the meaning behind certain songs. It's not like their relationship is public knowledge or even known to the rest of the band.

Maybe he should have run some of the songs by Rick before going off like a dumbass and recording them.

* * *

During the second week of recording, Negan texts Rick around midnight: _**What the fuck is up, Rick?**_

Negan doesn't think Rick will mind too much if the text wakes him up.

Rick types back a few minutes later: _Some of us are trying to sleep_

 _ **You'd rather sleep than talk to me? Fuckin rude. I thought we had something here.**_

 _Something on your mind?_

Negan's thumbs hover over the keyboard. For someone whose job requires a decent ability to wrangle words, he has no idea how to communicate any of this. He decides to wing it.

 _ **Would you be pissed if I wrote some of the songs on the new album about you? Y/N**_

The handful of minutes it takes Rick to reply send Negan into an internal panic. He thinks he sees his life flash before his eyes, like he's dying right here in one of Simon's guest rooms because Rick Grimes has reservations about being immortalized in music.

Finally, Rick responds: _How many?_

Negan wasn't expecting that.

 _ **Five and a half**_

Fuck, that's a third of the album. Is that too many? It feels like too many, but maybe Rick will be insulted the entirety of the record isn't about him. He'd be a cocky motherfucker for that, but it's a possibility.

Rick asks _: Is that a lot?_

 _ **Jury's out on that one**_

 _Well I hope they're nice songs_

 _ **One of 'em's pretty dirty**_

 _Only one?_

Negan's smirking at the text, then his phone's ringing in his hand.

"Why don't you play one for me?" Rick asks when Negan answers.

"Fuckin' spoilers, asshole. Wait for the album."

"It's only fair. If you're gonna put it out there, I ought'a hear it first."

"I'm not doing all five goddamn songs over the phone, Rick."

"Five and a half," Rick corrects. He's twisting Negan up, and he knows it. Negan hears the smirk in his voice.

"Smart-ass."

"Then just pick your favorite."

"Alright, you dick. But let the record show I'm doing this under duress." Negan sets the phone down and abandons the bed to fetch one of his acoustic guitars from across the room. He shouldn't be so embarrassed to do this in front of Rick if he's willing to perform these songs for entire stadiums. So Negan sits on the bed, puts the phone on speaker, and plays "Love is Blind:"

 _Now maybe both of us were doomed right from the start,_

 _Tryin' to fix the pieces of a broken heart,_

 _But I can't seem to let you go,_

 _I gotta take this thing real slow,_

 _Want you to trust me._

 _And all your friends they know that I'm that kind of guy,_

 _I don't know how, it must be somethin' in my eyes,_

 _They say love is blind,_

 _Oh baby, you're so blind,_

 _Because you can't see I'm goin' crazy._

 _You got me caught up on the feelin',_

 _When I can feel you breathin' on my neck,_

 _Don't let me go,_

 _Just take the time to understand me,_

 _Don't have to be demanding, baby._

 _I can't explain it, there's just somethin' about you,_

 _So say the word and let me know that you feel it too,_

' _Cause I don't think that I can make it without you,_

 _There's nowhere else I wanna be, just right next to you._

When Negan's finished, he holds his breath, waiting for Rick's response. Oh God, what if he hates it? What if he thinks Negan is the cheesiest motherfucker alive and dumps him?

"I guess that wasn't the dirty one," Rick says.

"Go fuck yourself."

Rick laughs a sweet sound that makes Negan wish he could materialize in bed beside him, just to hear that laugh unfiltered through the phone. "That's real sweet. You have my blessing, if that's what you were looking for. I want to hear the others"—he cuts off Negan's protest—"but I'll be patient."

"Damn right you will be."

* * *

 _March 2014_

Rick's working a salt-and-burn on the outskirts of D.C. during the two-year anniversary of Lori's death. He would have preferred a real hunt, something he could channel his grief and anger into on this bleak day, but he takes what he can get. On a more optimistic note, Negan should be arriving home from New York tonight. Rick texted him a few hours ago, just a simple _I miss you_ before heading into the city to meet with the clients. He often wonders if, had he shared his feelings more with Lori, she might still be here, and he wouldn't be in a cemetery at night tossing a match into an open coffin.

Maybe if Rick hadn't been so emotionally constipated, Lori wouldn't have gone to that park with Jacqui. They might have worked through their problems, turned their marriage around, and their children wouldn't be motherless. He could, of course, quit ruminating and let the past be past. But this insight can help guide his fledgling relationship with Negan.

 _Don't make the same mistakes,_ he tells himself.

When the job is done, Rick drives to a nearby gas station to check his phone; the last thing he needs is to linger at the cemetery where he just dug up a grave. His phone powers on, and a number of notifications stack on top of each other. Texts from Negan:

 _ **I miss you too, my luscious Georgia peach**_

 _ **Not even a disapproving emoji for that one? Well fuck you then. At least your kids are happy to see me.**_

Negan has included a selfie with Carl and Judith. Judith's sitting on Negan's lap, reaching out like she can touch Rick through the phone. Negan's wearing his devilish grin, his arm draped over Carl's shoulders to pull him in. Carl's smiling the way teenagers do when they're asked to have their picture taken: awkward and begrudging. From the familiar pattern in the background, Rick guesses they're sitting on the couch.

Warmth engulfs Rick's chest as he looks at the picture. In this moment, seeing how perfectly Negan fits into the spaces Lori left behind, Rick loves him. Yes, he misses Lori with every cell in his body, but the world no longer feels empty and cold. Is it that way for Negan, too?

Rick allows himself a minute or two to let the melancholic sense of loss permeate through him. This newly-discovered love for Negan feels like losing Lori all over again, because Rick Grimes may be many things, but unfaithful isn't one of them.

When he recovers himself, Rick types back: _On my way home._

Negan's reply heats Rick's blood: _**I'll be waiting.**_

It's after midnight when Rick finally makes it home. The lights are off as he pulls into the driveway. He briefly worries he's too late until he sees Negan's Charger parked out front. He unlocks the door and finds Negan lying on the couch. Negan raises his head, and from the look of his face he's been asleep. "About fuckin' time," he grumbles, sitting up.

Rick walks inside and takes in the state of the house. The chairs are tucked into the kitchen table, and there are no dirty dishes in the sink. "Y'all eat?"

"Rosita said she took care of that, but I think she just supervised while Carl nuked the TV dinners. By the time I got here, she was gettin' Judy ready for bed."

Rick had left Rosita in charge of the kids while he was out, and he'd let her know Negan would be stopping by to take over her shift.

"Did _you_ eat?"

Negan saunters over to him. "I grilled me a cheese and drank that beer you were hiding at the back of the fridge." He loops his arms around Rick's waist.

"The kids're in bed?"

"Judy's upstairs sawin' logs. Believe it or not, I can get shit done myself, Rick." Negan leans in and steals a kiss. Rick lets him take it, hands curling in the front of Negan's t-shirt. "And Carl's light went out fifteen minutes ago. We've got the place to ourselves. But clean yourself up first."

"You'll just get me dirty again."

Negan gives Rick a wolfish grin. "That's half the fun."

Rick heads upstairs for a shower. The hot water loosens his knotted, aching muscles, and he sighs into the billowing steam. He stays under the warm spray for thirty minutes, watching dirt and soap circle down the drain. When Rick comes out of the shower clutching a towel around his waist, Negan is waiting in the bedroom, stripped down to his black boxer briefs. The sight steals Rick's breath.

Negan smirks at Rick's speechlessness and moves closer. Rick's hands find their place on Negan's hips, then Negan drags him onto the bed and tears away the towel. His mouth is everywhere, and Rick groans as Negan's beard scrapes his damp skin. Negan opens his mouth around him, seeming to know exactly what Rick needs after an exhausting night. Rick hears himself groan. His body tenses and pulls Negan closer. Negan's mouth is slick and hot, unpracticed but eager to please; his scruff scratches and tickles as his jaw moves. Rick shivers, scraping his nails over Negan's scalp. Negan growls a noise that twists Rick up inside and rattles his cells. His tongue flicks over the head of Rick's cock, and Rick breaks with a cry.

After, they're lying together in bed when Rick says, "You ever think about moving in with us?" Maybe he's moving too fast, but fuck it. It feels right, and Rick has learned to trust his intuition.

Negan's fingers slide over Rick's spine, and he breathes in the space between them. "Once or twice." He flashes a smirk that makes Rick so, so weak; if Rick wasn't already a little in love with Negan, that would have sealed the deal for sure.

"That's all?" Rick's hand skims down the length of Negan's body and lingers near his dick. Negan's skin tightens.

"Alright, you got me. I think about it a lot."

Rick feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. "You're welcome here if you want to be. It's not as big as your place, but—"

Negan shuts him up with kiss. An effective tactic. Rick swoons and abandons his words.

"You really want me here?" asks Negan, his breath hot and sweet on Rick's face.

"That's why I offered."

"Why don't you wait 'til the tour's over? Sit on it for a while. You might change your mind."

Rick isn't looking forward to the void Negan will leave in his and the kids' lives for almost half a year. But accepting Negan as his partner means accepting that he's away from home a lot. And it's not like Rick's a stay-at-home dad either; he has his own fair share of absences.

"Okay," Rick says. "I'll think about it." But he's already decided.


	7. Chapter 7

_April 2014_

As it happens, the Saviors are touring on what would have been Lucille's thirty-second birthday. Negan gets through the night's show without too much trouble, though so much of Lucille lives in his music that he's a fool to expect a tearless performance. The most emotionally tasking songs have been clustered back to back in one acoustic set (what fucking genius set that up, he wonders before remembering it had been him). Each of those five songs destroy Negan, but he welcomes the obliterating pain, as though punishing himself for her death.

In the hotel room, he drinks all of the liquor in the mini-bar, giving zero fucks about the bill. He tosses the tiny empty bottles in the garbage bin (he grew out of the 'trash the hotel' phase decades ago) and collapses onto the bed, waiting for the world to start spinning. He closes his eyes, and he falls into the cradle of a memory so tender it pierces his heart: his first twenty-four hours with Lucille.

He met her when the Saviors spent two days in Indianapolis on their Conquer tour. They had gone to a bar after the first night's show, and Lucille stole the barstool beside Negan while Simon played pool. She introduced herself, told him she was a huge fan; he appreciated her candor and earnestness. She Who Must Not Be Named hadn't been a fan of Negan's music when they met or at any point in their relationship. He'd felt a constant desire to sway her, to write a song that somehow earned her respect. Negan knew right away he wouldn't have to do that with Lucille; she already liked him.

"I saw your show tonight," Lucille said with a great deal of reverence. "That new song you did was fucking amazing and so, so moving. Are you doing it every night on this tour? That's gotta be overwhelming."

She was right: the song fucked him up a little each time he performed it. The noxious clouds of stuff it brought up—the abuse, the manipulation, his goddamn naivete that allowed those things to keep happening to him—exhausted Negan.

 _If I could turn back time,_

 _If I could hit rewind,_

 _I'd wash it all away._

' _Cause I'm a fool in the rain,_

 _So many days slipped away,_

 _I'm looking back and I'm counting the mistakes I made,_

 _Oh, what a price to be paid._

"It kills me every time," Negan said.

"And it's incredible. You should do more stuff like that. Bring back the '80s rock ballad."

Her youthful, earnest gaze made Negan feel like he could, like Lucille appreciated his endeavors. He'd been nervous about debuting the song in front of an audience, certain the diversion from the band's typical genre would offend and enrage fans who expected the Saviors' usual fare during their 20th anniversary tour.

Maybe Lucille was just stroking his ego in hopes of an autograph or a one-night stand, but Negan didn't care. Lucille appreciated him, or at least pretended that she did, and even the pretense was more than Negan's ex-wife ever did for him. Not once did She Who Must Not Be Named refer to anything he created as "fucking amazing." Here was someone he could talk to, this dark-haired girl with wing-tipped eyeliner and a Nirvana t-shirt.

So he brought her back to his hotel room, and they made love in the way only two familiar strangers can. When it was over, he didn't want her to leave. She stayed, and he asked her about her dreams, her past, her passions. Lucille answered his questions earnestly, but there was a hint of mischief in her smile.

"Your turn," she said, skimming her fingers over his bare chest as they lay in bed. "You don't really care about all that crap, do you?" She arched one of her dark, perfectly-plucked eyebrows. "My favorite books, what makes me happy, my fondest memories?"

"In case you've forgotten, we've already screwed," Negan told her. "If I wasn't interested in you, do you think you'd still be here?"

Another challenging smile. "You just don't wanna look like a jerk."

"You're welcome to even the score. I'm an open book."

"Oh, I doubt that." Her fingers continued to play across his skin. Her touch was silk, and a small sigh of contentment slipped past his lips. Lucille looked at him, and Negan noticed her dark eyeliner had smudged. "How much did she hurt you?"

In just that simple question, Lucille seemed to intuit her understanding of his pain, as though she could see the fragility underneath the tough-guy mask.

Negan managed a grin. "Honey, that is a third-date question."

"I thought you were an open book."

"Where's the fun in skipping straight to the end?"

"It's not the end, unless there's something you're not telling me." Lucille smiled coyly and slipped a hand beneath the sheets, below his hips. Her fingers brushed against his cock, one of her nails _tap-tap-tapping_ against the head.

Negan choked back a grunt of need. He looked at the way she was touching him. "I think you only want me for my body."

That made her laugh (she laughed a lot when she was with him), and he carefully removed her fingers from his stiffening dick. He eased a hand between her thighs, touching the most sensitive part of her. She gasped and shifted her legs in invitation. She was still drenched from their earlier love-making, which made it easy for him to slide two fingers in. Lucille groaned a long, dreamy noise Negan wanted to hear for the rest of his life. She bucked her hips into his hand, and he withdrew his fingers just enough to let them rest against her, tantalizing. Negan watched her watching him. Her cheeks were flushed hot with arousal and frustration, her lips parted in mid-gasp.

"Please," she whispered.

"You gotta answer a few questions. We're gettin' to know each other, right? So…. Beatles or the Stones?"

Lucille only stared at him for a moment until she understood. "Stones, definitely." As she spoke, his fingers moved against and inside of her, turning her words into breathy huffs.

His hand paused when he said, "Don't just say what you think I wanna hear."

"I'm not."

Negan smiled. "Alright, if you say so. Steely Dan or Pink Floyd?"

His touch resumed at her answer, a reward for her participation. "Steely Dan."

"Best Van Halen frontman: David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar?"

"David Lee Roth."

Negan's hand stilled, and he stared at her. "Get out."

They shared a laugh.

"Alright, stroke my ego. Favorite song from our last album?"

She seemed to draw a blank, so Negan kissed his way down her body to jog her memory. "'Once Again.'"

"Shit, that's a deep cut," Negan said, impressed, and put his mouth on her. She came hot and sweet on his tongue, and he fell a little in love.

Later, they lay tangled together, his face buried in the crook of her neck. Her slender thighs were wrapped tightly around his waist. "You gotta be anywhere tomorrow?" he asked, and she squirmed at the bristle of his stubble against her skin.

"No."

"Then stay." Negan looked up at her, putting on his best imploring face. "I'm not above begging, but that'd be a real sad fuckin' sight."

"You are so sweet and earnest. Don't lose that." Lucille smiled and feathered her fingers through his hair. "Why me?"

"'Cause I like you. Can't it just be that simple?"

Lucille said she supposed it could, and she stayed.

Negan lies there on the hotel bed, alone and weeping.

* * *

The tragic first-year anniversaries hit Negan like suckerpunches, one after the other. In May it's Emily, and he thinks he's one fucked-up motherfucker for handling this yearly reminder of Emily's death in a relatively composed fashion; he performs the song he wrote for her when she was still a mass of cells in her mother's belly, and his tears are expected—admired, even. The fans weep for him, and he weeps for his daughter, and the act seems to cleanse him. He's shaking that night when he tries to fall asleep, but when isn't he restless after a show? A couple drinks, and he's swept away to a dreamless sleep.

Negan hates himself for this callous (dare he say well-adjusted?) response to the dead birth of his child. He should suffer madly, enough to drive himself insane like something out of a Greek tragedy. But inside the dark places in his head to which he rarely ventures, he tells himself that Emily was more a part of her mother than of herself, a small thing that would eventually become a person around the nine-month mark when Lucille went into labor.

 _Because you'd go full guano if you really let it sink in. If you pushed back that curtain and accepted what Lucille knew to be true._

The suffering he's been dreading comes the following month, one year to the day when he found his wife dead in the bathtub. His show that night is one of the best he's ever performed, but he pays a hefty price when it's over. Negan isolates himself from the rest of the band and stays in his hotel room. He can't be around anyone right now. He drinks and drinks, and his pain mutates into a bulging rage. On some level, he thinks this anger has appeared to paper over the still-healing wounds, to get him through this terrible day without slitting his wrists, but right now he only wants to _feel_ it. Because anger feels so, so good in place of that helpless, bone-deep ache of grief.

In this small Kansas hotel room on the one-year anniversary of his wife's death, Negan hates her. He misses her, he loves her, but he has never been so angry with her as he is now. He loved her with every cell in his body, and she left him. She spent the first year of their relationship deprogramming him from the self-loathing brainwashing he got from his father and the Bitch. Lucille told him that he was enough, that he didn't deserve the shit they put on him, and then she fucked right off.

Like he wasn't supposed to fall right back into that tar pit and blame himself. He made the vows, he read the fine print, he knew what his fucking job was, and he fell asleep at his post.

How quickly that anger turns around on him.

The loud hum of his phone vibrating against the night table breaks Negan's chain of miserable thoughts. He snatches it up, looks at the screen. There's a message from Rick: _I'm here if you need me._

Negan has never told Rick the dates of his tragedies, so Rick must have done some research. He received a similar text on Emily's day, though he hadn't needed it as much as he does right now.

 _ **You must be a goddamn mind reader, Rick. What am I thinking now? Hint: my tongue's involved.**_

Rick replies: _you need Jesus._

 _ **Already got him. He's in the band.**_

 _His name is Paul._

 _ **Don't talk about our Lord and Savior like that.**_

Rick types: _Where are you?_

 _ **Boner Springs KS**_

 _You're missing an N there._

Negan sends Rick the eggplant emoji, because there isn't a proper dick emoticon. Give the people what they want, Apple. Rick responds with the disappointed face, and Negan smiles—a real smile, not the fake ones he plastered on during the show—for the first time today.

* * *

Negan does the best he can to keep in touch with Rick and the kids while he's away. He snaps and sends enough photos and videos that he runs out of storage space on his phone, so he rejuvenates his Instagram account and uploads them there for posterity. There are photos of Negan and Eugene in Albuquerque showing off bags of blue meth lookalike candy from Breaking Bad; of the band dining on crawfish and gumbo in New Orleans; of Negan flipping the bird at Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (the Saviors have not yet been inducted); of him posing in front of motorcycles at Milwaukee's Harley-Davidson museum.

In June he mails Carl two Xbox games for his fifteenth birthday. Negan gets the text at the end of the night: _Holy crap dude you're awesome! Thanks!_

Negan smiles as he types back: _**No problem, kid. Hope you had a kickass birthday.**_

Rick has messaged him, too: _It was very sweet of you to remember Carl's birthday. Thanks from both of us._

 _ **When's Judy's birthday? Can't leave her out.**_

Rick sends him the date, and Negan saves it to his calendar.

The band's staying in Atlanta in July when Negan texts Rick: _**Doing a show in your hometown. Hook me up with some good eats.**_

Rick texts back with an impressive list of restaurants, and Negan promises him something special in return.

* * *

 _July 2014_

While Negan's performing in Atlanta, the dead are rising in a small town outside of Baltimore, Maryland. Officer Tanaka, one of the town cops, called in Rick's assistance, and they drove out to the local cemetery in the cover of night. The undead shuffle around them as Rick opens the trunk of his car.

"That's a lot of guns," Tanaka says, peering inside.

"They're all legal," Rick says. He takes out his go-to weapon: a Colt Python.

"Didn't say they weren't."

"You were thinkin' it." Rick snags a knife from the trunk, clips the blade and the gun to his belt holsters. "I used to be in your shoes, remember?"

A woman's harsh voice cuts through the night: "Freeze! Put your weapons on the ground!"

Rick turns, emptyhanded, to see the town sheriff pointing her pistol at them. She lowers the gun when Tanaka turns around, perhaps confused why her colleague would be cavorting with a stranger in the middle of the night.

"It's okay," Tanaka says, holstering his service pistol. "He's helping us with the zombies."

The sheriff scoffs, like uttering that word outside of a Romero movie is ridiculous. "We had this under control," she snaps at him, though her gaze pierces through Rick.

Rick says, "Doesn't sound that way to me. Tanaka tells me old lady Miller's been dead for five years, but she found the time to come out of the ground and eat her husband's stomach last night. Or is that just the kind of shit that happens around here?" They're wasting time talking. Their chatter has drawn the attention of the zombies.

The sheriff scowls at Rick and says, "Hand over the gun."

Rick acquiesces, since he has a knife holstered on his other hip in case one of the undead sneaks up on him. He gets a glimpse of her nametag—Sanchez—then he's being handcuffed in the middle of a cemetery while zombies shamble across the graves. So much for the knife.

"Really?" Rick snorts. "C'mon, I'm one of you. Retired sheriff. King County, Georgia."

"It's true. I checked," Tanaka pleads, his head swiveling as he gauges how much danger they're in. "He can help us with these things. C'mon, they're getting closer."

A zombie stumbles into their perimeter, its rotted teeth snapping at Tanaka. Sanchez fires into the biter's right shoulder. It staggers but doesn't go down, barely even reacts to the wound. The zombie lunges at Tanaka, and both of them hit the ground. Tanaka's gun flies out of his hands.

"Shit!" Sanchez fires the rest of her clip into the monster's body. Chunks of dead flesh fly out of each bullet wound, but the zombie merely absorbs the shots. It gnashes its teeth at Tanaka's face while the two struggle on the grass.

"Headshots!" Rick shouts. Fucking amateurs. Have these people never seen a zombie movie in their entire lives?

Rick smashes his boot into the walker's head, and the creature tumbles off of Tanaka. Rick crunches its skull once, twice, until the bottom of his boot is slathered with gore, brains, and bone splinters. The zombie stops moving like a switch has been flipped.

"You have to destroy the brain," Rick huffs. He'd offer a hand to help Tanaka up, but he's cuffed, so that's not happening. "Let's go. They're coming."

The zombies move as a horde, an encroaching wall of rot and decay. Sanchez, Tanaka, and Rick backpedal with purpose, creating distance from the herd. Sanchez radioes for backup while Tanaka fires at the zombies.

"Little help here?" Rick asks. Someone needs to uncuff him _now_.

"Cover me!" Sanchez hollers to Tanaka over the gunfire and begins working on Rick's handcuffs. Rick's hands are free, then Sanchez shrieks as a zombie latches onto her from behind, its gnarled fingers clutching at her shoulders. She jerks away and scrambles for her gun in its side holster. Rick plunges his knife into the zombie's left eyesocket, driving the blade through its dead brain and out the back of its skull. Black bile splatters onto Sanchez's face and uniform.

Rick orders, "We have to keep moving! Run to the woods!"

"What the fuck is going on?" Sanchez asks as they hurry for the trees at the perimeter of the cemetery.

"I don't have all the answers," Rick says. "I just know how to get rid of these things."

"Is this the apocalypse?" says Tanaka.

"I don't think so. Probably just unholy ground or necromancy. The world ain't over yet."

They make it into the cover of the trees and reload their weapons. Sanchez returns Rick's gun. "Tanaka, where the hell did you find this guy?"

"Craigslist."

"Oh Jesus," she sighs, glaring at Rick. "If I find out this is all bullshit—"

Rick blasts a zombie shuffling toward the tree line. It drops like a marionette with its strings cut. "You don't have to believe me. But you saw these things crawl out of the ground. You saw what's been happening to your people."

The sounds of distant sirens cut through the moans of the dead. But Rick knows those sirens could travel for miles in a quiet town like this. No time for celebrating yet.

Using the trees as makeshift fencing, the three of them pick off zombies as the undead shamble forward. Sanchez's gun clicks.

"Shit! I'm out!"

Tanaka fires two more shots. "Me too. Rick, you got any ammo?"

"In the car. Didn't have time to grab any. We got _interrupted_ ," Rick says, his voice icy. "Let's circle around and head back. We can use the trees as cover. I don't think they can see in the dark."

They creep through the forest as Rick guides them to the cemetery entrance where he parked his car. Night makes its claim with each passing moment, but in the moonlight Rick can see the outline of the undead through the trees. Leaves crunch and branches snap under his boots. The wail of sirens grows closer.

"Sanchez," Rick whispers, "tell your backup to aim for the head."

She does, switching on her radio and relaying the advice. "Shepherd! O'Donnell! Make sure you get headshots, or else these things won't go down!"

They're about sixty yards away from the edge of the tree line. Once they step out from behind the trees they'll be unguarded, but Rick doesn't want to risk hiding in the woods with only one of them being adequately armed.

He makes it about five steps when a zombie blocks his path. Its right arm dangles at its side, held on by a few sinews of muscle. Rick barrels into the creature, keeping his momentum going. They crash to the ground, and Rick drives his knife through the zombie's skull. Ancient blood smacks him in the face, and he gags at the fetid stench.

"Keep going!" Rick orders. Sanchez and Tanaka run ahead while Rick dislodges his knife from zombie viscus. They leave the cover of the trees and race towards Rick's car. As Rick weaves through gravesites, he spots a few decrepit hands sticking out of the soil. Definitely unholy ground.

The police roll in after Rick reaches the car. Then there's a barrage of gunfire and shouts. Muzzle flashes light up the night like magnesium flares. One by one, the dead drop to the ground.

Sanchez exhales a sigh of relief. "Thank fuck."

"It's not over," Rick says. "They're still coming out of the graves."

"So how do we stop them? I mean, after we kill these things, what keeps this from happening again?" Tanaka asks.

"Get a priest to bless the grounds. Something evil happened here, and it poisoned the soil. Couldn't have been more than a month ago."

"And if that doesn't work?" Sanchez asks him.

Rick tilts his head in Tanaka's direction. "He has my number."

* * *

Rick drives back to Alexandria a little after midnight. He listens to Negan's new album during the long journey home, though he's worn out the disc in the three months since its release. Before leaving for the tour, Negan gave Rick the Saviors' entire discography on CD, but Rick finds himself coming back to _The New World_. Maybe it's hubris, because a third of its songs are about him, but it's one of few albums where he can relate to a great deal of the lyrics. Every song Negan wrote about his loss is crafted with such care and accuracy that they're almost painful to listen to, because they strike deep in the heart of Rick's own loss as well.

Halfway through the album, Rick finds himself singing along with Negan on "Lonely":

 _You were here and you loved me,_

 _But now it's time to let go,_

 _I don't know why I feel so guilty,_

' _Cause you were so damn lovely,_

 _And I just can't let go,_

 _I don't know, guess I got a scar on my soul,_

 _Baby, I'm sorry, but sometimes I get so lonely,_

 _And I miss the lovin' comfort of your arms,_

 _We're worlds apart now,_

 _I'm sorry, but I'm sure you've heard the story,_

' _Cause I let somebody new inside my heart,_

 _It ain't right,_

 _I'm sorry, baby, I'm so lonely…_

Rick parks in his driveway at 1:20 a.m. just as the album comes to a close. Down the street he sees Tara and Rosita's house lights are off, so there's no point in waking them up now to bring the kids home. He'll stop over first thing in the morning.

After a shower he falls into bed, switching on his cell phone in case of a Carl or Judith-related emergency. As soon as his phone gets a signal, his notifications blow up with texts and Instagram posts from Negan. Most of the photos are shots of Negan in various hotspots around Atlanta and pictures of his food. Rick recognizes a few of the locations—especially the burger joint, but of course he does. He recommended it.

Along with the pictures, Negan's included a couple videos of select performances from tonight's show. Judging from the thumbnail, he must have had a roadie grab the footage from his phone, since they're clearly not professional recordings, but the quality is decent enough. Better than almost every video floating around on YouTube that "proves" paranormal activity (seriously, what are people recording those with, potatoes?).

The first video is a short clip of Negan sitting center-stage with his guitar, performing "Gone Away." The song is a sucker-punch to Rick's chest, picking at the wound Lori's death left behind. He can only imagine how much weight it carries for Negan.

The second clip makes Rick smile immediately after he hits play, because Negan starts off with a dedication that's equal parts endearing and amusing: "Since I'm here in Atlanta, I wanna dedicate this song to someone special tonight." The crowd whoops, and Negan makes a face. "Alright, don't make it weird." Negan grins at their laughter, then Jesus begins to pluck out a two-string acoustic riff. "I want you to sing it with me."

It's Rick's favorite song on the album: "Love is Blind," the one that twists him up with bubbly first-crush excitement. Jesus has pulled up a chair beside Negan on-stage, but Negan's left the playing to Jesus, which makes the song feel more intimate when there isn't a guitar serving as a shield between him and the audience. What surprises Rick is how fucking _into_ the song the crowd is. It's just a bouncy guy-with-acoustic-guitar song, but they know every word, every inflection, and they aren't shy about singing along. There must be about ten thousand people chanting in time with the lyrics, but Negan's voice shines above them all; it's like a warm robe, comfy and soothing, with just the right amount of roughness for texture. Or something. Whatever, Rick's not a music journalist; he can't describe this shit.

He checks the timestamp on the messages. They were sent about forty-five minutes ago, so Negan's probably still awake. Rick dials the number, and his mouth pulls into a smile when Negan's honey-smooth voice sounds at his ear: "What the hell're you still doin' up?"

"Just got home. I had a case near Baltimore, a small town about an hour north. Y'know zombies are real?"

"You sound surprised."

"'Cause I am. But I guess nothing's off the table anymore."

"Are they Romero zombies or 28 Days Later zombies?"

"They move pretty slow, but I wouldn't let my guard down around 'em."

"You alright?"

Negan's concern for Rick's well-being strikes him as heartwarming. "I always come back in one piece."

"If you got bit, I'm gonna kick your ass."

"Nah, no bites. You're the only one who gets to do that," Rick says, his skin heating up at the flirtation.

"You tease." Negan purrs a sound that Rick feels like a rumble in his bones. "You gank all the suckers?"

"Mostly. They were still crawlin' out of the ground when I left, but I told the town cops what to do."

Negan scoffs. "You're leaving the walking dead up to Bumblefuck County's finest?"

"Watch it. I used to be sheriff of Bumblefuck County back home," Rick says with a smile. "Speaking of, how'd you like Atlanta?"

"It's fuckin' hot," Negan says, like he's amazed by this.

"Maybe take your leather jacket off next time."

"As a matter of fucking fact, I do. Sun's out, guns out."

Rick laughs, though maybe he's not supposed to.

"But that doesn't mean it's any less hot. Fuck the sun."

"That's a controversial opinion."

"Well, I stand by it. I'm pale and old; summer's no good to me. You see all the shit I sent you?"

"Yeah." Rick feels a blush creep up his neck and across his face. "That damn song…"

"How red are you right now?" It seems Negan knows Rick well enough to tell when he's blushing _over the phone_.

"Shut up," Rick grumbles. "You can be real sappy when you wanna be, Negan."

"You're at stage five blush, aren't you?"

Negan guessing correctly puts Rick at stage six now. He scowls even though Negan can't see his expression through the phone. But maybe he can; Rick doesn't put that kind of shit past Negan anymore.

"I see you shaved," says Rick, changing the subject.

"You like it?"

"I miss the scruff."

"Yeah, I bet it felt pretty damn good when I was sucking your cock, huh, Rick?"

There's no way Negan didn't hear the tiny gasp Rick just made.

"Stage seven," Rick says, and they laugh together.

"Well, don't get your panties in a twist. I'll grow it back by the time I get home."

"And I'll have to thank you," Rick says with a hint of flirtation.

"Damn, that's got me all hot and bothered. You mind if I rub one out while we're talkin'?"

Sometimes Rick can't believe he's got it bad for this big doofus. "I draw the line at phone sex."

"C'mon," Negan pleads. "You don't have to do all that unsexy narrating shit they do in porn. Just grunt and huff and say my name."

Negan's seeking out fuel for the orgasm he's planning on having after this call, so that's what Rick gives him. "No, but how 'bout when you get back, I'll let you fuck me." He knows it's something Negan has wanted since sex became part of their relationship. And Rick hasn't been afraid of it, not exactly. Just nervous.

Negan groans a strained noise that Rick recognizes; it's the sound he makes when Rick rubs his cock through his jeans. "Fucking hell, you're killin' me."

"Why don't you think about that tonight?"

"You dick," Negan huffs, and from the sounds of his breathing he's already getting started.


	8. Chapter 8

In August, Negan sends Judith an oversized package full of stuffed animals, coloring books, and crayons for her fifth birthday. He gets a call the next morning at six a.m. in Seattle.

"You remembered my birthday!" Judith says when he answers. "Thank you for the presents!"

"You're welcome, darlin'," Negan says, rubbing his eyes as he tries to wake up. "I'd never forget about you."

"When are you coming home?"

 _Home._

Negan's awake enough to pick up on that one. His heartbeat stumbles over itself. Has Rick told her Negan might be moving in with them, or does Judith simply see him as part of the family already?

"Not for a couple months, kiddo."

"That's too long. I miss you," Judith whines. "Daddy and Carl miss you too."

"I know. I miss you a lot. When I get back, how 'bout I stay a couple days with the three of you? If it's okay with your dad."

Rick speaks up, his voice tender. "It's fine with me. She's not the only one who wants you home."

"Oh yeah?" Negan says slyly. "Judy, I think your dad's got a big ol' crush on me."

That makes her burst into giggles. "Do you kiss him?"

"All the time," Negan teases, because he knows he's on speakerphone and wants to embarrass Rick. "Right on the mouth."

Judith says, "Ewww!" Outside of Disney movies, kissing and romance are totally gross to a five-year-old.

Negan hears Rick's soft chuckles on the other end of the line. "What time is it where you are?" asks Rick.

"A little past six."

"Hope we didn't wake you up."

"Naw, I don't mind if it means talking to my two favorite people in the whole world!"

"What about Carl?" Judith wonders.

"He's number three," Negan says.

"Who's one?"

"Well, that'd be you. But don't tell your brother. It'll be our little secret."

Judith laughs, and for the briefest moment Negan wonders if she sounds anything like how Emily might have sounded. The thought knocks him off-guard. He pauses, takes a deep shaking breath to steady himself.

Rick's voice comes through the phone, but this time he's talking to Judith: "Why don't we let Negan get some sleep, okay? Say goodbye."

"Bye-bye!" comes Judith's cheerful voice. "Thank you for the presents!"

"You're welcome, honey. I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

"'Kay!"

Negan says his goodbyes to Rick and Judith, then the call is disconnected, and he's alone again. Because his brain is an asshole, he thinks about Emily, about the life he would be living right now if things had shaken out differently. Emily would be under a year old; Negan would be at home with Lucille, and maybe one of them would be rising this early anyway to feed or change the baby. There would be no tour, because there would be no album. The tragic impetus for _The New World_ would not exist, and Negan's life would be as blissfully happy as he had imagined it during those few months of Lucille's pregnancy.

Negan sits up in bed and places his hands over his wet eyes.

As the tears leak over his fingers, he reminds himself if that life had come to pass, he would never have met Rick Grimes.

* * *

That night's show is one of the best the Saviors have ever played, at least in Negan's opinion. The band was in top form, and Negan didn't fuck up too badly, so he's counting it as a win.

After the concert, the band gathers in a sushi restaurant near the ferry terminal. There's a smorgasbord of food spread out before them. While Simon and Dwight fight over a sushi platter, Negan sends Rick a few select performances from tonight's show. "Get Freaky" was fucking fantastic, and he knows it'll make Rick blush (given that Negan wrote it about screwing him), so he goes with that. He also sends a cover of Bob Dylan's "Tangled up in Blue," since that's more in line with Rick's musical tastes. And it's a damn good song.

Simon looks at Negan and says, "Dude, who are you texting?" as though Negan's typing and focus on his phone is so goddamn distracting it's pulled Simon away from his chopstick war with Dwight.

Simon is like a brother to Negan, which means he can be a huge asshole sometimes. So Negan isn't in the habit of telling him everything. "None of your fuckin' business, that's who."

"An answer like that points in the direction that it is, indeed, our fuckin' business," Eugene speaks up matter-of-factly.

Negan just gives him a sour look from across the table. "If you're gonna stick your nose up my ass, fine. I'm just posting some of the concert videos to Instagram." He shows them his screen in case they doubt his honesty.

Simon isn't impressed, judging by the dark furrows of his brow and mustache. "You have never given a single solitary fuck about social media before."

"I gotta maintain my brand."

"It's far from my intention to dogpile, but I've seen you responding to text messages a whole lot for someone whose sole companions are always in the room with him at any given time," Eugene says.

Eugene could have made Negan sound more pathetic there, but he would've had to make a concentrated effort.

"I know people who aren't you guys," Negan protests, chuckling at the audacity of Eugene's claim.

"You know Gregory," Jesus points out, like he's trying to be helpful.

"Fuck him." But maybe this isn't something Negan should keep from, as Eugene put it, his "sole companions." The Saviors have lasted this long because, at their core, they care about each other like family and have lives outside of the band, so no one comes down with a case of primadonna disease and leaves to pursue a solo career. If Negan can't trust his bandmates, he's made some grave mistakes regarding his social circle.

"Alright, look," Negan admits with a tired sigh, "it's nothing, really. I'm seein' somebody, and we keep in touch."

"The same chick you were screwing around with when we recorded the album?" asks Simon.

"Well, I wasn't totally honest about that. First, it was a lot less 'no strings' than I let on. Second, it's a guy, so go ahead and get the pearl-clutching out of the way. I'll wait." Negan tells them this because he knows they're not bigots, but nonetheless they might be surprised to hear he's been dating a man under their noses for the last couple months.

Eugene does not appear to give a shit about Negan's sexual preferences. Jesus looks happy for him, which, considering Jesus's own homosexuality, was pretty much a given.

Simon makes a face like he thinks Negan shouldn't be in charge of his own life.

"Well, that's a surprise," Dwight says before taking a chug of his beer.

"Sure," Simon adds, "but I don't think that's all of it. I mean, we didn't even know Lucille existed 'til you invited us to the wedding. This guy's more than just a fuckbuddy, isn't he?"

"We're moving in together when I get back, if he hasn't changed his mind by then," says Negan.

"Hot damn!" Simon says, amused. "I bet he'll love your place, huh?"

Rick has built a nice, quiet suburban life for himself and the kids—not the kind of guy who would enjoy living in a mansion.

"Actually, I was thinkin' about moving in with him," Negan says. "Doesn't seem fair to make the kids change schools."

Simon's eyes bulge. "He has kids?"

Dwight and Simon are the kings of disapproving looks tonight. But Eugene and Jesus seem indifferent to this revelation.

"Oh, _what_?" Negan grouses, irritated by their judgmental stares.

"You think it's possible you're only with this guy because he already has kids? You can just step right in and be the dad you always wanted to be," Simon says.

It's no secret amongst the Saviors that Negan has longed to be the father he never had to a child of his own. She Who Must Not Be Named refused every method of bringing children into their lives, first postponing the expansion of their family before finally claiming both of them would be sub-par parents. "I don't have the patience for it," she had said during one of their many arguments, "and you've told me about your father. Don't keep that cycle going."

"That's bullshit," Negan said, trying to keep the quiver out of his voice. "Only one in eight actually…" He stopped himself, seeing the futility of arguing with her.

She gave Negan a look that sliced right through him. "What if you're the one?" And they never spoke about it again.

So it's possible that Simon is right, and Negan has fallen for Rick's family moreso than Rick himself. But it's also a huge load of shit. Negan knows how he feels, and there are plenty of Rick-centric emotions bouncing around inside of him. Hell, he wrote a third of the new album about how head-over-heels he is for the guy, and none of those songs mention kids or family or anything beyond his own feelings for Rick.

Negan snipes a piece of sushi from the platter before Simon and Dwight can quarrel over it. "I didn't know about the kids at first," he says, and it's a bit of a lie. The first emotion he felt towards Rick that January morning in his office was lust; when the lust tempered to a crush, Rick had told Negan about his family situation.

Simon holds up his hands as though warding off a confrontation. "Look, we just don't wanna see you go through what happened with the Bitch." He knows not to say her name, though if anyone hates Negan's first wife more than Negan himself, it's Simon. Simon was there through the whole turbulent marriage, had known Negan before She got her claws into him. And Simon does not forgive easily.

"Rick is _nothing_ like her," Negan growls.

"Guys, if Negan's happy, we should be happy for him too, right?" Jesus interjects, trying to bring peace to a table that might soon erupt.

The rest of them drop the subject, but it's already wormed its way under Negan's skin.

* * *

Negan's night ends with texts and pictures from Rick. The photos are of Judith during various stages of her birthday party; there's one of her blowing out the candles on her cake, of her clutching the massive My Little Pony plush that Negan sent her. The last photo is of Judith with the cake, though it's zoomed out to capture the small crowd of guests who attended her party. Negan recognizes Maggie and Glenn from next door, Tara and Rosita from the end of the cul-de-sac, as well as other neighbors Negan can't yet put names to.

Rick's texts read: _Since we're both sending highlight reels… Thought you'd want to see some from Judith's birthday. Thank you again for all you do for us. I don't know where we'd be without you._

Negan writes back: _**are you drunk? You sound drunk**_

Rick: _I'm not the one who needs alcohol to talk about his feelings ;)_

Negan: _**I fucking do not**_

Negan's about to drop the 'L' word, but he stops himself.

 _ **I'm crazy as fuck about you, and I'm sober right now**_

 _That sounds like something a drunk person would say. Also you have a song called "Drunk" on your new album. Not making a strong case for sobriety_

 _ **You gonna bust my balls all night?**_

 _You'd like that, wouldn't you? ;)_

 _ **Damn, Rick, breaking out the winky face twice in one night. That's some serious flirting**_

Rick types back after a moment: _I miss you_

Something tickles and somersaults in Negan's chest.

Rick continues: _I want you to move in with us when you come home. Or we can move in with you. It's your choice_

Negan lies there in bed, staring at the words on the screen as though they might transform into something horrible. They don't. Rick truly cares for Negan, so much so that he wants to unite their lives, even after spending time apart.

Fuck Simon. Negan knows that he loves Rick for who he is and not the family he brings along with him. He knows the way he feels when they're lounging on the couch after the kids have gone to bed, the excited sparkle in his heart when Rick's fingers find his own. How he'd be willing to die for Rick if it ever came to that. Of course he loves Rick; it's fucking preposterous that he's actually doubting this.

Negan types back, hoping he hasn't left Rick hanging too long: _**You still got a couple months to change your mind. But of fucking course I wanna be with you.**_


	9. Chapter 9

_September 2014_

In Newark, New Jersey, a flock of groupies follows Negan and his bandmates from the restaurant to the hotel. It's a short walk, so Negan doesn't even know the girls are there until the hotel's sliding doors shut off the bustle of nightlife from outside. He hears giggling and whispering, then they approach him with bright eyes and eager smiles. There are three of them—a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead—each one dressed to play up her unique assets.

"Hi, Negan," the brunette says, shaking his hand. "It's so great to meet you. I've been a fan since I was fifteen, and I love what you're doing with your music now. Your last two albums have been amazing."

"Not that the others aren't," the redhead says. "But the new stuff is so fresh and different."

"'Fake Love' got me through a really bad break-up," the blonde chimes in.

"You and me both," Negan says with a grin. The girls are young and sweet and seem harmless enough. "Why don't you ladies come upstairs with me and I'll hook you up with some autographs?"

In the elevator, while the girls are talking animatedly with Jesus, Eugene, and Dwight, Simon leans in close to Negan and murmurs, "Take the other two if you want, but I get dibs on the blonde."

Negan makes a face. "That's up to her, isn't it? And it's not like that."

"The hell it's not."

"Did you forget I'm happily taken?" Negan remained faithful while he was with Lucille, though it hadn't been easy with the endless parade of willing partners sneaking backstage or lingering outside his hotel room. His reputation, however, precedes him; Negan's up there with his contemporaries in regards to screwing around with groupies, and these girls probably know that, might be banking on it, even. After all, hadn't Lucille been just like them?

Simon just scoffs, like the notion of Negan staying faithful to Rick is absurd.

When the elevator stops, the eight of them cram into Negan's hotel room. It's a bit small, but he doesn't necessarily need a suite. Negan signs the liner notes of CDs, pages from pamphlets of past tours, and even a cell phone case. He hands out drinks from the mini-bar and learns the names of the three girls: Amber (the blonde), Frankie (the redhead), and Tanya (the brunette). The girls tell him their favorite Saviors songs, and Negan's in no real hurry to see them go. Aside from the obvious ego boost in hearing people gush about his work, Negan genuinely enjoys talking with his fans, though after so many encounters like this one they tend to blur together.

"It's so sad about your wife and baby," Amber tells him in a low voice when the other two girls are caught up talking to the rest of the band.

Even after a year, fans are still condoling with him; will this continue in two years? Five? Ten? Negan finds that prospect strange and mildly depressing.

"Are you doing okay?" she asks.

If Negan hears that one more time, he'll probably explode. "I get by day-to-day."

"Is it hard, singing all those songs about them every night?"

Negan nods in a noncommittal way. "Sometimes, yeah. But it does get easier."

"Amber, are you bumming him out?" Tanya asks, moving in to grab another drink from the mini-bar. She must read the expression on Negan's face, a sadness he didn't know he was exhibiting.

Amber scoffs. "No! God!"

"I'm a big boy, Tanya," Negan says with a smile. "Nothin' I can't handle."

Tanya takes out a small bottle of liquor from the fridge, shuts the door. "Who'd you write 'Love is Blind' about? Or did you pull that one out of the vaults?"

"Is there a vault?" Amber adds with wide-eyed wonder.

"There is, but it's more like Al Capone's vault than any real treasure trove," Negan says, and, holy shit, he's really dating himself with that one. He says to Tanya: "To answer your question, I wrote it about someone special."

"The same special someone you dedicated it to in Atlanta?" Amber asks. At Negan's look of surprise, she adds, "Someone uploaded a fan-cam on YouTube."

"Back in my day, we called 'em bootlegs," Negan says.

"Uh-oh, Grandpa's waxing nostalgic again," Simon chimes in. Seems he's been eavesdropping.

Negan flips him off. "Eat me."

"Nah, you already got somebody for that," Simon volleys back.

Negan blushes (God, is this what Rick has to deal with every time Negan teases him?), hoping none of the girls poke at Simon's comment too closely.

"I'll do it," Amber volunteers, nonchalant.

Frankie shrieks a laugh and gives Amber a playful slap on the arm. "You slut!"

"What? Like you wouldn't?"

Negan laughs. "I'm flattered as fuck, but as Simon not-so-gently pointed out, that position's been filled."

"Any other open positions?" Tanya asks, a lilt in her voice and her hips as she sips her drink; Frankie and Amber giggle.

Rick ought to take some pointers from these girls in regards to his flirt game, which, while adorable in its naivete, could use some improvement. But Negan can't really picture Rick pulling off a line like that without laughing, and that awkward self-awareness is part of his charm.

Surrounded by three beautiful, available ladies, all Negan can think about is Rick.

 _You've got it bad, you sappy fuck._

"Not with me, but Simon and Eugene are single and ready to mingle. Dwighty-boy is happily married, and Jesus bats for the other team." Jesus is openly gay, so Negan's not worried about outing him.

Simon shoots Negan a quick disbelieving look. _You're really passing this up_ , his face seems to ask, and Negan gives him a slight nod.

The girls look at Simon and Eugene, as though sizing them up, before ultimately shrugging as if to say, _Why the hell not?_

Simon slinks an arm around Amber's shoulders. "There's a lot more booze back at my room. Hell, a bottle of tequila is in my rider." He leads her out of the room.

"I don't have any more alcoholic beverages than Negan does in that mini-fridge," Eugene tells Tanya and Frankie, "but what I do have is a jar of rather delicious pickles and a Nintendo Wii with the latest Mario Kart. Do with that what you will."

The girls follow Eugene out. Dwight leaves after them, but Jesus hangs back for a moment. He's wearing a proud-of-you smile that Negan kind of hates.

"You love him," Jesus says, and there's a hint of friendly teasing in his voice.

"Fuck off," Negan grouses, but he doesn't disagree.

"Rick's a very lucky guy," Jesus says before exiting the room.

Negan isn't so sure about that; all things considered, he thinks he's the lucky one.

* * *

Rick recalls a text from Negan asking: _**You're gonna be home on your birthday, right? None of this work shit when you turn… however the fuck old you're gonna be.**_

Rick had responded and said that, yes, he would be home, so when Shane Walsh shows up on his doorstep, there's a bit of context for his appearance.

"Rick!" Shane grins madly and wraps Rick into a crushing hug. Rick's still stunned when Shane pulls back to get a look at him. "Damn! It's been too long! How the hell are ya?"

"I'm… I'm great. What are you doing here?"

Shane tilts his head. "Oh yeah, I guess he wouldn't have told you. Bein' a surprise and all. Your buddy Negan told me to get my ass up here for your birthday. You never told me you were friends with a rock star!"

Negan. So that was why he wanted to know if Rick would be home on his birthday. How long had he been planning this? He must have tracked Shane down when the band was in Atlanta. Christ, that was months ago. Whatever else Negan might be, he's a master of the long game.

A goofy smile crawls over Rick's face; he's certain he's reached stage six blush by now. "Oh, wow, that was—that was real nice of him."

Shane cocks an eyebrow in a particularly challenging way. "Somethin' you ain't tellin' me, Rick?"

"Like what?" Rick asks, feigning innocence, though blushing doesn't help his credibility.

"Like maybe you and this Negan guy are—" Shane crosses his index and middle fingers in suggestion. "If you're not, the way he talked about you…" Shane gives Rick a pointed look. "He sure wants to be."

 _Oh my fucking God._

Rick's achieved a critical stage of face-redness. He gives up on trying to control it. "Well, yeah, we're… kind of a thing."

Shane claps Rick on the shoulder. "That's my boy."

Rick lets him inside and offers him a beer as they head into the kitchen. Shane says yes, looking around at the house and its interior. "Got yourself a pretty nice place."

"Yeah, it's great." Rick sets a cold beer in front of Shane and sits beside him at the table. "The neighbors help out a lot with the kids. They're good people."

"The kids're at school now?"

Rick nods. "They'll be happy to see you. Judith's grown so much." Then, as though remembering something: "It was real nice of you to send them birthday cards."

"Uncle Shane ain't forgettin' about them," he says with a smile. He pops open the beer and takes a long swig. "Tell me about you and Negan. How the hell did that happen?"

"Tell me how he set this up first."

Shane knows he won't get anything out of Rick if he isn't honest. "He was in Atlanta in July. You must've told him about your past, 'cause he showed up asking for me. Said he was a friend of Rick Grimes. We got to talkin', and he said he wanted to do something big for your birthday. Floated the idea of sending me up here to see you. When I said I'd try, he handed me some money and said, 'try harder.'"

"He bribed you?"

Shane guffaws. "No, dumbass. He paid for my flight and lodging. Kind of a no-brainer after that."

Rick feels that dumb smile work its way onto his mouth again.

"Did he write any songs about you?" Shane wonders. "He gave me tickets to the Atlanta show, and some of those new songs seemed like he might've had somebody in mind when he wrote 'em."

"Well… He said there were five and a half."

"He's got it bad for you, my man." Shane takes a drink. "Your turn. How'd you land a rock star?"

"I'm a P.I. Negan hired me. We ended up getting along."

"God, you are a shit storyteller."

"Just the facts, ma'am."

"What'd he hire you for?"

"You ever hear about confidentiality?"

Shane scoffs like Rick is being unreasonable. "Just a whisper between friends."

Rick sits back in his chair, shaking his head. "Mm, sorry. Wouldn't be professional."

"You always were such a goody-two-shoes." Shane takes another drink. "Is it serious? You and him?"

"He's moving in next month."

Shane almost spit-takes before he stops himself. "Holy shit, you got this dude wrapped around your finger. Nice job."

"It ain't like that," Rick says with an uneasy chuckle.

"He lives in a million-dollar mansion, but _he's_ moving in with _you_? No offense, Rick, but you got him whipped."

Rick doesn't like the implications there, especially considering the circumstances surrounding Negan's first wife. "I don't think he wants to live there anymore after what happened."

Confusion washes over Shane's face. "What happened?"

"You didn't hear?"

"I don't keep up with that kind of shit."

Rick debates how much to tell him. It doesn't seem fair to talk about Negan's tragedies without permission, but if telling Shane stops him from thinking Rick's some domineering boyfriend….

"He and his wife lost their baby. Then she overdosed in the bathtub."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Shane breathes out.

Rick nods in agreement. "I wouldn't wanna live there either."

Mercifully, the topic shifts to Shane's life back in Georgia. They're so immersed in catching up that Rick's surprised when Carl and Judith come home from school.

"Shane?" Carl says from the doorway. "Oh my God, dude, what's up!"

"Hey, Carl!"

"Uncle Shane!" Judith squeaks.

The two kids rush over to Shane. Carl gives him a fistbump, then a hug. Judith throws herself into his arms; Shane picks her up and sits her on his knee. "Hey, you guys! Good to see you!" He ruffles Carl's hair with his free hand. "Your hair's gettin' long, my man."

"Thanks. Yours… isn't."

Shane laughs, rubbing his own buzzed head. "It's hot back home. Gotta do what you can to keep cool."

"Guess what?" Judith says. "It's Daddy's birthday today!"

"You're right, sugar! We're gonna have a little party for him."

Judith's eyes light up, and she turns in Shane's lap to look at Rick. "Is Negan coming too?"

The wide-eyed hope on Judith's face fills Rick with an acute sadness. "No, honey, he can't come home yet. But he didn't forget about me. He called me this morning and wished me a happy birthday." Actually, Negan sent Rick a long text message detailing all the dirty things he wants to do with Rick when he gets home, but Judith doesn't need to know that.

"Aw, okay." Judith looks at Carl. "Give Daddy the surprise we made for him!"

Carl's gaze swings to Rick as though seeking permission. "We, uh, we made you something. And Judy wanted to get you a gift, so we did that too."

"Everyone should get presents on their birthday," Judith says, "even grown-ups."

"Right on," Shane agrees, and he gives her a fistbump. "Bring 'em on out."

The kids cheerfully present Rick with a birthday cake they must have baked yesterday at Tara and Rosita's. The cake had been stowed in the fridge, the sheet pan covered with aluminum foil; Rick noticed it this morning while searching for the eggs at breakfast. But he's a little surprised when the foil comes off to reveal what is obviously a cake prepared by sugar-obsessed children: there's rainbow chip icing, Oreo crumbles, Teddy Grahams, and an explosion of sprinkles on top.

"This is for me?" Rick asks, awed.

"Duh!" Judith says, like Rick's an idiot. "It's your birthday!"

Carl sticks a skinny candle left over from Judith's birthday party into the middle of the cake. "If we put on a candle for each year, we'd set the place on fire. So you just get one."

"Ha-ha," Rick says with a smirk. He has no idea how much of Carl's smart-ass talk comes from being a teenager or from Negan's influence. Maybe a mix of both.

"Take a picture for Negan!" Judith suggests to Carl. He has his phone out a second later, snapping a photo and sending it off to Negan.

Before they even cut the cake, Judith's fussing to her brother, "We have to give Daddy his present first!"

"Alright, go get it," Carl says with a hint of exasperation, and Rick finds it adorable that his children have orchestrated this together.

Judith stampedes up the stairs to retrieve the present, her small feet pounding on each step.

"What'd you get him?" Carl asks Shane.

"I _am_ the present, courtesy of Negan."

"You know Negan?"

"You think he was just passing through when he stopped in Atlanta?"

Carl appears to be ruminating on this, on what it means that Negan went through all the trouble to find one of Rick's closest friends and send him here on Rick's birthday.

"He's pretty cool, huh?" Carl says with a lopsided smile. "You listen to his music?"

Shane shrugs a shoulder. "The older stuff, yeah. Their first album was the shit."

Rick recalls a comment Negan made once about those early records, how the band had sounded "like Bob Seger fronting AC/DC." Some of their early material was derivative as hell—"Rock Me Baby" featured guitar riffs reminiscent of Malcolm Young's sound and style—but it got them off the ground and onto the charts.

"I didn't know they were still around," Shane says, which feels like a jab at Negan's age.

"I got it!" Judith shouts from the top of the stairs. She hurries down and presents Rick with a giftwrapped rectangular object. "Happy birthday, Daddy! It's from me and Carl."

Rick can't guess what it might be. Upon unwrapping the present, he finds Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader staring back at him.

"It's a new diary!" Judith explains. "The one you use for work is all old, so we got you a new one!"

"It's not a diary," Carl corrects her for what sounds like the tenth time. "It's a journal."

Rick opens the leather cover and flips through. The pages are lined and blank, perfect for documenting information on ghouls and goblins. As Judith pointed out, his current journal is held together with duct tape and prayers, pages threatening to fall out at a moment's notice.

"Thank you guys," Rick says, endeared that his children made the effort of finding him a birthday present. "It's perfect. I love it."

Judith turns toward Carl and triumphantly places her hands on her hips. "I told you he'd like it."

The cake, as it turns out, is delicious. As they eat, Rick's phone is bombarded with text messages from his friends and neighbors wishing him a happy birthday. As he reaches to shut off the ringer, the phone chirps its whistle tone, the tone that means a message from Negan. Rick never really bothered with adjusting the alert sounds on his phone, so at some point Negan grabbed Rick's phone while he was out of the room (or asleep) and picked out a custom text tone for himself.

"You're a popular guy," Shane says.

Rick steals a glimpse at his phone's screen: _**Have a good one. I'll send you a few special surprises later.**_

Negan punctuates the message with suggestive emojis. Rick hopes he doesn't get a barrage of dick pics tonight. Not that he's opposed to the concept, but it seems fruitless to look at Negan's dick if he can't put his mouth on it.

"I do pretty well, I guess," says Rick.

The kids beg Shane to stay for dinner, so he does. Rick certainly doesn't mind; it's nice to have company, to have a familiar face from his past life cross over to his current one. Carl asks Shane questions about their friends back in Georgia, and Shane's happy to talk. Between him and Rick, Shane was always the chatterbox. Rick preferred to listen, to quietly observe and learn about a person through what they said—or didn't say.

"How long are you in town?" Rick asks Shane during a lull in the conversation.

"That eager to get rid of me, huh? I fly out tomorrow morning."

"You should stay the night here. We got room."

"Yeah, stay!" Judith pipes up.

"It'd be cool," Carl adds.

"Wow, a ringing endorsement!" Shane grins. "Guess I'm staying!"

After dinner, Carl and Rick make up Shane's bed on the couch. Shane's in the bathroom freshening up, so Carl takes the opportunity to ask, "I never really thought about it before, but Shane kinda reminds me of Negan."

"He doesn't swear as much as Negan does," Rick points out.

"Yeah, but that's not what I meant. I can't really explain it."

Rick nods halfheartedly. "I guess I can see it. They both act big and tough. They both talk a lot."

"Probably why they got along," Carl agrees. "It couldn't have been easy to win Shane over."

True enough; Shane isn't the most trusting person Rick's ever met. Negan's charm and knowledge of Rick's personal life must have converged in a way that made Shane feel as though he was trustworthy.

"You still okay with Negan moving in?" Rick asks.

"Yeah, I like him. You're dating a rock star, Dad. That's pretty awesome."

Not that Rick puts too much stock in things like that, but, yeah, it is pretty awesome.

"Some people might say I'm movin' too fast."

"Like who?"

Rick doesn't have a specific answer for that, but he doesn't let that stop him. "People."

Carl scoffs a laugh. "Whatever. Who cares? The only people who know about what happened to Mom are our neighbors. And they're not judgmental jerks. Well, maybe Ron is, but screw him."

Later, after the house has gone to sleep, Rick lies in bed and scrolls through his text messages. Negan has sent him more photos of tour shenanigans: one of Negan and the rest of the band feasting on lobster, another of them posing in front of the Cheers bar in Boston. And, of course, a smorgasbord of videos. Negan has included tonight's performances of the songs he wrote about Rick, a cover of Neil Young's "Heart of Gold," and a song from the Saviors' previous album. It's another acoustic piece, with Negan and Jesus on guitar. Obviously the song was written about Lucille, but something tells Rick that Negan sent it to him for a reason:

 _Take it easy, I'll help you walk the road,_

 _You're a masterpiece, you're beautiful,_

 _And I'm never gonna ask you to change a damn thing for me,_

 _Take it easy, I'll help you bear the load,_

 _Through joy and sorrow, today and tomorrow,_

 _I'm so lucky I found you,_

 _Your love is gonna set me free._

Rick feels that stupid smile flood his face as he listens. How is Negan so poetic and sweet in song yet raunchy and crude when he actually talks?

Rick sends him a text: _Gettin' soft on me, Negan?_

Negan replies: _**Hell no. I'm always hard for you, Rick. ;)**_

What kind of response had Rick expected, really?

 _Have you covered Turn the Page on this tour? Seems perfect for you._

 _ **Too cliche. Besides, Metallica did it best. Enough about me. Did Shane show up, or do I have to kick his ass?**_

 _He showed. That was a nice surprise. You can be real sweet when you wanna be._

Rick hesitates only a second before he types: _I love you._

He has a moment of gut-wrenching panic when "Read: 12:33 a.m." pops up underneath his message, and there's no indication that Negan is typing a response.

He hopes Negan is just as flabbergasted as Rick would be to read those words. Maybe Negan's staring at the screen in awe, trying to process what he's seen.

The phone rings in Rick's hand, scaring him half to death. Rick answers, and Negan grumbles: "Did you seriously just say that over text? Tell me to my face, asshole."

Rick barks out a relieved laugh. "Alright. I love you."

"That's more like it. I love you, too." There's vulnerability in Negan's voice, and in this moment Rick loves him more than he ever has.


	10. Chapter 10

_October 2014_

Negan's flight home from Los Angeles is delayed by a bird strike. He stays stuck at the airport for a couple hours until the engine is repaired. He texts Rick from the tarmac at Reagan: _**On my way home. Hope you didn't change the locks.**_

Rick types back: _I can't wait to see you. The kids fell asleep, so I get you all to myself._

He used the devil and heart emojis, so Negan knows Rick means business.

Pulling into Rick's driveway after six long months gives Negan the sensation of floating, like he's still trapped in the air. The porch light is on, and he uses his key to get the door open. It's dark inside, save for a small lamp on the end table near the couch. Then Rick is there, clutching the front of Negan's shirt and kissing the breath out of him. His lips taste like bourbon, and Negan kisses Rick again and again until he's drunk.

"I love you, I fuckin' love you," he hears himself rasping out between kisses; the dread and fear of saying those words to Rick's face melts away instantly.

Rick's breath is hot and sweet against Negan's cheek. "I know. C'mon." He tugs at Negan's belt, urging him upstairs, and Negan doesn't need to be told twice.

Rick makes good on his promise to let Negan stick his dick into him, but they don't get that far at first. Rick is unpracticed and unaccustomed to this, so it only takes a few wet pushes of Negan's fingers before he's coming with a sharp, surprised gasp. Embarrassment colors Rick's face, and Negan kisses it away, feeling Rick's mouth morph into a grin around his own.

"Shit, I thought I would last longer," Rick breathes out around a small laugh. "Should'a practiced."

Negan bites down on a groan. "Fuck…" The mental image of Rick Grimes fucking himself on his fingers is hotter than it has a right to be.

"You'd wanna watch, huh?" Rick pushes a hand down the front of Negan's shorts, fingers curling around his dick. Negan can't help but rock into it, matching the rhythm of Rick's fist until he breaks, too.

"God damn it." Negan slumps on top of Rick, shaking and dizzy from his orgasm. "Looks like both of us are minutemen. We're gettin' old."

"Speak for yourself."

Negan pouts at that, at least until Rick glides his bare foot over Negan's calf. The softness of the touch, the intimacy of skin on skin makes Negan feel as though his heart is full.

They stumble into the shower, where their slippery hands grope and grab at each other. Rick gets Negan's back against the slick tile, kissing and biting at his lips until Negan's sure they'll be sore in the morning. The insistent press of Rick's cock against Negan's thigh becomes a slow slide as his hips move. Negan spurs Rick on with quick bites at his jawline and gentle fingers pushing into him.

When they make it back to bed, they last a little longer. Negan's breathing hot over Rick's spine as their hips clash. Rick grunts and claws at the sheets, shoving back to meet Negan each time. There's a quiver running along Rick's skin, like his entire body is a live wire, and Negan feels the same. He has to push it, has to see how far he can take it before it's too much.

Negan slides a hand into Rick's damp curls and tugs. He's rewarded with a needy groan. "Shit, you're wide open for me, huh?" Negan huffs, snapping his hips forward, and Rick quakes as he smothers a moan into the mattress. "Not bad for a first-timer. You're takin' it all like a champ, honey." This gets Rick squirming, whimpering, and Negan knows he's blushing, too. If he could see Rick's face, he'd be lost. "Doin' fuckin' great."

Negan's name is alive and hot in Rick's mouth. Negan feels something shift between them, a sensation that their energies have aligned.

"You gonna come for me, Rick?" Negan purrs, and Rick does, his body pulling another orgasm out of Negan while he shakes his way through it. Negan clutches onto him like he's a life raft in a storm. Wrung out, they drop onto the mattress and catch their breath. Rick turns on his side, draping an arm over Negan's chest.

"It's good to be home," Negan says and tosses a grin at Rick.

Rick smiles back. "I'm glad you're here."

"And not just 'cause I fucked your brains out?"

"Well, that doesn't hurt."

Negan covers Rick's hand with his own, his thumb tracing shapes on Rick's palm. "Still want me to move in? 'Cause I'm gonna bother the fuck out of you for the forseeable future."

"You can try. What happens next for you and the Saviors?"

"No more long tours, that's for fuckin' sure. I'll see if we can chop the next one down to three months. If there is a next one."

"No more music?" Rick asks, and Negan hears a trace of sadness in his voice.

"Oh, hell no. This train ain't stopping."

"Good. I wouldn't want you to quit 'cause of me."

"No way. I'm not quittin' yet. And we can still play live shows, just not six fucking months' worth. Or more. Those days are over. I'm too goddamn old for that. Worst case, I'd be okay with writing songs for other people."

Rick gazes at Negan with interest. "How much of the music do you write?"

"Depends on the day. Sometimes I can bust a couple out all by my lonesome. And other times I gotta share the credit. Nobody else in the band wants to write lyrics, so that's always my job."

"But it's mostly you, huh? Otherwise you'd just be called The Saviors."

Negan laughs. "Don't let them hear you say that."

"What does the rest of the band think about slowing down?" It's sweet that Rick's taking their feelings into account too.

"They've got their own lives. Me and Simon are about the same age, so I know he's feelin' it ten times harder than me. Drumming can wreck you. The other guys are young enough; they can find work in a heartbeat if they want. Plenty of bands would love to snatch them up. But they've got other shit goin' on too. Dwight and his wife are thinkin' about having kids. Jesus has his boyfriend. Eugene does electronic music on the side. They'll get by just fine."

"As long as this is what you want…" Rick says, sounding a little more convinced than he was a minute ago. He glides his hand down Negan's forearm, the one with his dead baby's name etched onto it, and Negan feels the darkness lifting, if only a little bit.

"Abso-fucking-lutely. I never wanna be away from you that long again."

There's this goofy little smile Rick makes when he's trying not to show that Negan has charmed him, and here it is, front and center. "Alright, Mr. Smooth Talker. I'm with you."

* * *

It takes Negan about a week or two to decompress and adjust to life off the road. He spends this time with Rick and the kids, trying to fit his existence into theirs. On weekdays, he makes breakfast for Carl and Judith before driving them to school. Carl is equal parts embarrassed and proud to be dropped off in Negan's Charger. Judith has no concept of any of that; she just enjoys spending time with Negan.

Today is Halloween, and Negan's taking the kids to school while Rick deals with an influx of calls and appointments that stem from the holiday. Carl's dressed up as the Joker from The Dark Knight, while Judith has chosen Elsa from Frozen. She's sitting in the back seat while Carl sits up front looking pensive.

"What's eatin' you, kid?" Negan asks. "Let's put a smile on that face."

Carl scowls harder.

"C'mon, it's Halloween. There's no frowning allowed on Halloween. I think that's a law."

"Do you really have to play your own music in the car?" Carl wonders.

"She likes it," Negan says, pointing a thumb at Judith, who's singing and bouncing along with "What's Up."

Carl doesn't seem to appreciate that this is the same song Negan taught him to play when they first met. He rolls his eyes and turns to the window, like he's going to combust if he has to look at Negan one second longer.

"Carl, c'mon, talk to me. Is it about your dad?"

"Look, don't be gross about it, but how did you and Dad"—Carl is struggling for a way to word this that doesn't set Negan up for a dirty joke—"start dating?"

"You got a crush on somebody?"

Carl's inherited his father's blushing stages, for sure. "Just answer the question."

"I asked him to have dinner with me. This stuff's only hard if you make it hard." Negan's doing his damndest to hold back the joke he could make here. Someone ought to admire his self-control.

"That doesn't help," Carl sighs, hopeless.

"Just find out something she likes and start from there."

"Okay, but, like, how do you get somebody to like you?"

Negan hears his younger self in Carl's question and feels a fist squeeze his heart. "You don't. Just be yourself and hope for the best, kid. The right person will appreciate it."

"Wow. That's such a dad answer."

Negan grins; this is the first time either of the kids have acknowledged him as a father figure. He's going to milk this for all it's worth. "I always figured she'd be the one to call me Dad first," he says, glancing at Judith in the rear-view mirror.

"I didn't call you Dad. I just said you answered like one," Carl insists, offended, before switching the subject. "And I can't ask her to have dinner with me 'cause you're totally embarrassing."

"Alright, then ask her to come along with us tonight."

Carl rolls his eyes. "Oh, sure. 'Hey, you wanna go trick-or-treating with my little sister and sort-of stepdad?'"

"You're a good brother, and chicks dig that kind of thing. Acting like you're too cool for shit makes you look like a dick." Negan's trying to cut back on swearing in front of the kids, but sometimes it just slips out.

"You have an entire song about how girls want bad boys."

Negan is a little amazed Carl ventured that far back into the band's discography. "That was less about bad boys and more about me specifically." Carl's rolling his eyes so hard they might become permanently stuck staring at the roof of his skull. "And gimme a break, I was barely old enough to drink when I wrote that."

They pull up to Carl's high school. Teenagers mill about with heavy coats and hoodies thrown over costumes. Some of them are wearing masks or face paint. The students trudge inside as though approaching execution. Carl's hand lingers on the passenger door handle like he wants to say something more.

"Just ask her," Negan says.

"Alright," Carl huffs, grabbing his bag from the back seat. As he reaches back, he smiles at Judith. "Bye, Judy. Trick-or-treating tonight!"

"We're gonna get lots of candy!" Judith cheers.

Carl is the boy Negan wishes he had been himself; he's suffered loss, but it has softened him, made him gentle.

As Carl gets out of the car, Negan calls, "Have a good day, _son_ ," and laughs at the way Carl cringes and hurries off. Even the kid's embarrassment over Negan is half-assed, like he's putting on a show of exasperation because he feels it's his duty as a teenager.

Negan makes the short drive to Judith's school. It's close enough to the high school that Carl usually walks there after class and picks her up, but Negan is lazy, and it's cold outside. He parks in the lot and turns to Judith. "You want me to walk you in?" he asks, as he does every morning.

Judith gives her typical answer: "We're s'posed to be _independent,_ remember?"

"Well, alright then." Negan grabs her sparkly backpack from behind the driver's seat and hands it to her. "Have a good day, kiddo. I'll see you tonight! Are you excited?"

"Yeah! Will you take the candy I don't want? Daddy always lets me give him the yucky stuff with peanuts and coconuts."

"Sure, darlin'. I think I can handle that."

"Who are you gonna be?"

"Batman." It's been his go-to costume for the past couple years; why fix what ain't broke?

"What about Daddy?"

"Your dad has to work, remember? So he won't be goin' with us tonight, but he might be home later. Then you can show him all the candy you got."

Judith looks sad for a moment. "I wish Daddy didn't have to work. He's busy a lot."

"He ever tell you what he does?"

"He said he's a vestigator. He helps people find things."

"That's right, but y'know he does somethin' else too? He makes monsters go away."

Judith stares at him with wide eyes, like Negan has just told her Rick is God. Or Santa Claus.

"When people find monsters in their closets or under their beds, they have your dad come and get rid of them," says Negan.

"That's so cool!"

"He never told you that part?"

Judith shakes her head.

"Guess he didn't want to scare you by talking about monsters."

But Judith isn't listening. She's staring at Negan's arm, which is draped over the back of the driver's seat. She runs her small finger across the letters on his forearm. The tattoo ink of his lost daughter's name is visible since he shed his coat to drive.

"Who's Emily?" Judith asks in a tiny voice that tears into Negan's heart like razorblades.

Negan doesn't know how she hadn't noticed the tattoo before, until he remembers he's been gone for the last six months, and her reading skills have improved since the beginning of the year. To her, the writing on his arm is made of letters now instead of squiggly, indecipherable shapes.

Negan runs a hand along the leather seat for a moment, wishing he'd given more thought to explaining this. "She was my daughter. A little girl just like you."

"Does she like ponies and superheroes too?"

"I don't—I don't know. She didn't… get to be as old as you."

"What happened to her?" Judith's only five, but even she can tell some horrible shit went down.

Negan hasn't answered her question. He doesn't know how.

Judith reads his face, which must be creased in some horrible, depressing way. "Is it something bad?"

"The same thing that happened to your mom happened to Emily," Negan finally says.

Judith's expression crumbles, her blue eyes full of pain, and Negan wants to punch himself for upsetting her. "That's really sad. But she's in heaven now with Mommy, right?"

"Yeah, she is." He hopes that's true, though he doesn't believe it. But since ghosts, demons, wendigo, and all sorts of supernatural creatures are real, maybe an afterlife isn't too unrealistic a thought.

Judith grabs her bag. "I'm gonna be late," she says, so Negan exits the car to help her out of the backseat. She fusses with her gown, pulling her puffy red coat tightly around herself as she shoulders her bag. She gives him a quick hug, and they say goodbye. He watches her hurry towards the building and disappear through the front doors.

In the car, Negan sinks into the driver's seat and mourns the daughter he never knew.

* * *

At home, Rick is lounging on the couch when Negan and the kids return from the night's trick-or-treating. Judith jumps into his lap and shows him her candy haul. Carl and his friend Clementine head for the kitchen table, where they spread out their candy and barter for each other's pieces.

Negan drops onto the couch beside Rick, silently observing him while Judith proudly exhibits her candy. Rick looks tired albeit delicious in a brown plaid shirt and dark jeans. There's a weariness in his eyes that comes from finishing a job; Negan recognizes it because he's seen that look on his own face after a tour.

Clementine's father, Lee, arrives to pick her up, and that seems to signify the end of the night; Carl heads upstairs and Rick gets Judith ready for bed. Negan takes a shower while he waits for Rick. When he's freshly scrubbed and dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, he discovers Rick's journal on the bedside table. It's the Star Wars journal that Judith gave Rick on his birthday, so it's fairly new, though some wear has begun to show on the edges. Negan opens it to the middle. Rick's sloppy handwriting fills the pages, alongside newspaper clippings and drawings of symbols. He flips the pages until stopping on an entry that gives him pause.

There's a crude pen drawing of a tall, lanky creature, the word "wendigo" written in all caps beside it. Rick's written a wall of text around the drawing, and some of the phrases that catch Negan's eye are: "eats flesh," "lives in forests," "tall and pale with elongated limbs," "can imitate human voices." On the opposite page are what Negan assumes to be warding symbols, and a clipping from an Atlanta newspaper with the headline: "Missing Woman Found Dead in State Park." His gaze snags on the name Lori Grimes in the article.

"Shit," Negan murmurs.

"Well, she's finally asleep," Rick says softly as he enters the room, but his voice still makes Negan yelp in surprise and drop the journal onto the table as though it's a hot coal. Rick's watching him with a curious, amused look.

"Jesus, Rick, you scared the shit out of me."

Rick chuckles. "And on Halloween, too." He edges the bedroom door closed but keeps it open just a bit. "You can read it if you want."

"But it's no fun readin' someone's diary with permission."

That doesn't stop Negan from reading over Rick's shoulder later when they're lying in bed. Rick's adding to the entry of whatever he contended with tonight: a wraith. He writes: _snapping off the spike it uses to feed can disorient them, but it grows back later._

"Do I even wanna know how you know that?"

"Probably not."

"Damn." Negan catches sight of a particularly gruesome fact: _wraiths crack open skulls and feed on brain juice._

Negan wonders briefly what might have happened if that creature had gotten hold of Rick, then shakes it off. This journal is proof that Rick can and will conquer whatever evil beings cross his path. Like Rick told him when they first met, monsters have to follow the rules.

Negan places a hand on the back of Rick's neck and kneads, feeling the knots there. Rick groans a luscious sound of relief. "You ever think about finding somebody to share the load with?" Negan asks. "There's bound to be one other person out there who knows about this stuff."

"Nah. I don't wanna waste time thumbing through applications from thrill-seekers."

"C'mon, there's gotta be somebody." Negan works his fingers over the slope of Rick's neck. "It's the internet. You can find anybody there."

Rick shrugs a shoulder. "I'd prefer to work alone."

"Didn't you have a deputy workin' with you when you were a sheriff?"

"That was different," Rick says in a way that tells Negan he's getting irritated with this line of questioning.

"Suit yourself, but this shit can't be easy. It wears on you, Rick. I can see it. I'd feel better if you weren't out there all by yourself."

Rick looks at him, wearing a small smile of resignation, and Negan finds himself momentarily breathless. "I'll think about it." Rick returns to his journaling, and about a minute or two of peaceful silence passes between them. "Thanks for taking care of the kids," he finally says. "Not just today, but over the last couple weeks. You've been a big help."

"You know me; I'm here to lend a hand." Negan slides his touch down Rick's thigh, fondling him through the blankets.

"You ever get tired of jokin' around all the time?"

"Nope." Negan gives Rick one more squeeze before taking his hand away.

Rick finishes his note-taking and reaches across Negan to set the journal and pen on the night table. "Well, sorry to be a downer, but you're not gettin' any tonight. I'm beat." He shifts underneath the comforter, turning onto his side. But Negan knows he won't stay that way for long. Somehow, Rick starts each night with his head on the pillow and his body confined to a small window of personal space, and by the time he wakes up Rick's got an arm and a leg around him and his head on Negan's chest.

"Good night then, you dick," Negan jokes.

He lies there, listening to the soft sounds of Rick's breathing. Rick's hair is still faintly damp, and the bedroom smells like his shampoo. When Negan is sure Rick has fallen asleep, he reaches for the journal, as though unearthing secrets. Negan reads it until his eyes throb, and he turns out the light.


	11. Chapter 11

In early November, Negan stops dragging his feet on moving in with Rick and begins the arduous process of packing his things. He has enlisted the Saviors to help him along, though for the first couple days they don't accomplish much beyond lounging around and talking. This mansion, despite the awful things that happened here, still holds some of Negan's best memories. The beginning of his life with Lucille. Their many attempts at conception in the bedroom and the shower stall, on the couches and the kitchen island. Writing songs while Lucille lounged alongside him on the basement couch. Helping her plant flowers in the back garden, a playful streak of dirt across her face. Moving out of this house will be like abandoning those memories, and Negan only has a few finite remnants of Lucille to cling to now.

And Emily…. How the fuck is he supposed to leave her here? She was never born, but they had consecrated a room to her, on the second floor next to their own bedroom. Negan doesn't want to step in there after such a long absence. It's as though his time spent away has weakened him, and setting foot in that unfinished baby blue nursery will wreck him anew.

So it's no wonder Negan and the rest the band spend most of their time playing darts and devouring the contents of his pantry.

Occasionally, he wonders if he's made a mistake, if Rick and the kids should move in with him instead. But beyond the impracticality of that option, it's incredibly selfish of Negan. For Christ's sake, he's already salted and burned Lucille's corpse; leaving the house where they built their marriage should be as easy as breathing in comparison.

Negan doesn't have half as much crap to sort through after Lucille's ghost smashed everything breakable, so packing isn't as daunting as it would be under any other circumstance. But Negan can't bring himself to fucking _do it_ , and the lackadaisical work ethics of his bandmates aren't helping either.

"Can we please get this shit done so I don't have to step foot in this fuckin' place again?" Negan asks one afternoon while the five of them are snacking on chips and salsa.

Simon, Jesus, Eugene, and Dwight look at him as though he's sprouted a second head. "I thought you were hiring people to do all that shit for you," Simon points out. "You know that's a thing, right? Please tell me you know that."

Negan hadn't really considered it. "Doing it myself is supposed to be good for me."

"Is that why you haven't done jack?"

"Baby steps, asshole," Negan grouses, but there's no heat to it.

"You asked us to help, so that's what we'll do," Jesus says, pushing away from the table and getting to his feet.

Eugene rises in solidarity. "Consolidating your belongings is a mighty fine idea, and I'm willing to assist in any way possible."

Dwight and Simon both shrug and make "eh" noises, so Negan figures they're in too.

They start boxing up the kitchen. Most of the kitchenware belonged to Negan; Lucille's kitchen expertise never expanded beyond following the directions on a box of pasta. As he packs away cooking pots and serving utensils, he's reminded of the occasions he tried to teach Lucille how to cook, evenings spent laboring over the stove while Lucille sipped wine and watched him.

Negan has to brace himself against the sudden wave of sadness as the memories come flooding in. He crouches there, between the open doors of the lower cabinets, and remembers to breathe.

 _Come on, you fucking idiot,_ he tells himself.

The others do not notice his momentary lapse of composure. His eyes closed, Negan hears the metallic clatter of silverware and the bumble of Tupperware around him. He takes a deep breath and puts himself back together.

The remaining first-floor rooms are consolidated in much the same way. Negan has a good deal of the living room space set aside for donated items; most of the furniture and a few boxes of Lucille's things sit there waiting to be carried off. The whole process has Negan physically and emotionally drained. He's polishing off the Jim Beam white whiskey when there's a knock on the front door.

"You finally came to your senses and hired movers?" Simon wonders, taping up a box.

Curious, Negan strolls over to the door and opens it. Rick's standing there in black jeans and a blue shirt that matches his eyes. His half-smile is worthy of poetry.

"Thought you might want some help," Rick says. Negan's so happy to see Rick he could kiss him. So he does, yanking Rick in by the belt loops. Rick licks at Negan's mouth, as though trying to taste the alcohol on his tongue.

"Oh shit!" Simon says from inside the house. "This must be your new boy-toy!"

Negan bristles at the word, freeing a hand from Rick's jeans to flip Simon the bird. Rick doesn't seem to notice; his hands are grasped in the front of Negan's t-shirt, their mouths latched until Negan breaks away. He invites Rick inside and shuts the door.

"Listen up, you dicks!" Negan announces, guiding Rick into the living room where the others are working. "This is Rick. He tells you to do something? You do it. You give him the _utmost_ respect, or you fuck off! Am I clear?"

Jesus smiles at him and shakes his hand. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Rick." His warm expression says he's glad Negan has someone like Rick in his life.

"Indeed a pleasure to make your acquaintance," Eugene says; he's not big on handshakes (or most physical contact). "I can assure you I will not be a hindrance or a naysayer regarding your relationship with Negan. I respect all forms of love, so long as they are safe and consensual—"

Negan holds up a hand to stop him. "We got it."

Rick looks bewildered and amused by the people Negan calls friends.

Dwight and Simon aren't ones for heartfelt expressions of emotion, so the shrugs and acknowledging head nods towards Rick let Negan know they're on his side.

Negan tells them he's going upstairs, and he guides Rick to the second floor, snagging the whiskey bottle off the countertop as he goes. He takes a long drink.

"I texted you I was coming," Rick tells him. "But you didn't answer."

Negan doesn't know where his phone is. That's going to be a problem later. "And you took a wild guess that I'd be here, huh?"

"I'm a sleuth, remember?"

"You're a private dick," Negan snickers as they climb the stairs.

"That one never stops bein' funny."

Negan leads him to the bedroom, because he has to work his way up to the nursery if he's going to make it through this. He stands amidst the room he once shared with Lucille and feels his heart sink. "You had to do this shit, too, right?" he asks after a moment, his voice soft in the quiet room. "How'd you get through it?"

"I had the kids. I told myself we were moving to give them a better life."

"What'd you do with her stuff?"

"I kept the things that were important to her, to me. Donated the rest. She would've wanted that. She liked to help people."

Negan nods. "Lucille too."

Rick moves in closer, laying one hand on Negan's shoulder while the other grabs the bottle. "You can do this." He meets Negan's eye, then takes a drink. His face is scrunched in disgust when he lowers the bottle from his lips. "Oh God."

Negan laughs, and Rick hands back the bottle.

The bedroom takes a little longer to pack away than the other rooms, but Negan figures they're doing okay considering their moving crew has been cut down to two people. And even when the memories well up inside of him, Negan finds it's easier to deal with them when Rick's there. Because Rick has been through this too, so it's okay if Negan gets a little teary-eyed, if he gets stuck on a memory like a mouse in a bramble bush, and Rick has to nudge him to set him free.

The guys wouldn't understand. They've never experienced a loss like this, and they would stand around him in an awkward circle and wait for the tears to subside, maybe offering a couple useless platitudes. But Rick gets right in the trenches with him and shares his own bittersweet recollections.

They uncover Negan and Lucille's photo album inside a box in the closet. Negan flips through, spurred on both by the desire to share this part of his life with Rick and his own urge to reminisce.

Rick smiles at the wedding photos. "Look at you," he says with a teasing smile.

Negan looks younger in the pictures, a little fleshier, his smile optimistic and hopeful. Has Rick ever seen him smile like that? He doesn't think so.

"Look at _her_ ," Negan corrects, because Lucille was stunning in that white strapless dress.

Rick nods in an appraising sort of way. "I don't really feel comfortable ogling your wife."

Negan huffs a laugh and turns the page. The photos begin to thin out as digital photography becomes more mainstream, and the last few pictures in the album are from their vacation in the Caribbean. A particularly striking image shows Lucille on the beach in her swimsuit; she hated smiling for photos, but Negan could always get her to crack a grin. She's laughing at something he said, and the sun is just where it needs to be. Her dark hair catches the reflection of the azure ocean. Negan stares at the picture, as though trying travel into the photograph and back to that moment.

Rick says, "Wow," sounding impressed.

"You ogling my wife, Rick?"

Packing away Lucille's clothes for donation feels like Negan's tearing out his own veins, but Rick is gentle with him, a tenderness that comes from experience. By the time they make it to the nursery, Negan is drunk and confident enough to step inside.

The nursery itself is mostly unfinished, lacking a crib and a completed paint job, but there's enough there to punch a hole through Negan's heart. Cartoon animals decorate the soft blue walls. The ceiling has been painted over with half a cloudy sky, Lucille's own Sistine Chapel. The mural was never finished.

"Did you paint all this?" Rick asks in a soft voice.

"Nah, Lucille was way more of an artist than I am. I tried to help, but she wanted to do it herself."

Negan takes a deep breath, looking around at the beginnings of a life that could have been. Dismantling all of this will gut him, because it will tell him with finality that Emily and Lucille are truly gone. Negan has always known this, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, but he can't hide from it now.

"You could use some of this stuff in Judy's room," Rick suggests. "If that's something you wanna do."

The plush child-size chair in the corner, the enormous stuffed frog, the fluffy white area rug, the small white bookcase filled with plush toys and children's books. All of it could be reused. Judith would love this sudden surge of gifts.

Negan smiles at the thought. "She'd think it's Christmas already."

Rick smiles, too. "Maybe we should hold off, save it 'til then."

"Fuck no. I'm making the conscious decision right now to spoil the hell out of your daughter, Rick."

"You're just makin' my job harder."

So that's what they do.

"She's gonna love this stuff," Rick says, examining each item as they're packed away. "She still plays with all the toys you gave her for her birthday. I guess it's more special when it's from you."

"Don't worry, my novelty will wear off eventually. You'll be top dog again before you know it."

Rick sits on the hardwood floor beside Negan. "I'm glad she likes you. And Carl, too. Makes what we're doing a lot easier when they're not fighting it."

"You wouldn't be here if they didn't like me."

Rick half-nods, because it's true, but he won't admit it. He finishes filling up another box and says, "You don't have a crib." It's a question more than just a statement.

"Lucille didn't like any of the ones we saw, so she decided to hold off for a while. She was a bit of a perfectionist."

"Lori was that way too," Rick says. "Had to have everything just so. We spent ages tracking down a crib for Judy. She hated the rectangle ones, which made it harder, since that's just about the most common shape for a crib. But she finally picked out an oval one with white ruffles on top and pink on bottom. When Lori saw it, she didn't even wanna look at the rest of the store. She just knew that was it." His smile is equal parts sad and joyous, as though recalling the memory has allowed him to live in it momentarily.

Negan runs a hand over Rick's own. "She sounds like a kick-ass lady."

"You would've liked her. She was passionate, opinionated. Fierce. But she had a soft heart."

"A lot like Lucille."

Rick rises to his feet, taking in the progress they've made. The room is bare, save for the furniture and boxes of items soon to be Judith's. He offers Negan a hand, and Negan takes it. He doesn't let go, even after he's on his feet.

"You did it," Rick says in quiet congratulations, squeezing Negan's fingers with his own.

Negan feels like crying. It isn't grief that grips him now, but love. Rick came here today because he knew how difficult this would be for Negan. He knew the lack of progress over the last few days stemmed from Negan's fear of facing these rooms, so he came to help.

Rick's love and patience, it seems, are bottomless.


	12. Chapter 12

_December 2014_

Negan's fighting sleep when Rick finally comes home around 2 a.m. He rises from the couch, about to playfully scold Rick for making him wait, but what he sees makes the words back up in his throat. Rick's face is a ruin of slashes, blood leaking from each wound and onto his jacket. He shuts the door behind him as though it weighs a metric ton. Negan sees Rick's right hand, clutched weakly to his chest, is covered in gore. The flimsy gauze wrapped around the meat of his palm is soaked in glistening red blood. Negan hopes like hell there's still a hand under all that red mess.

 _One two three four and a thumb oh thank fuck all his fingers are still there._

"Jesus, Rick, you alright?" Negan rushes to his side. Rick throws an arm around Negan's neck and lets him shoulder some of his weight. "What the fuck happened?"

"It's not as bad as it looks," Rick says. There are deep slices on both sides of his face, scratches on his brow, and a dark fork of blood leaking from his nose. Also, the hand. The hand is a serious issue right now.

"It looks pretty fucking horrible." Negan isn't squeamish, but the sight of someone he loves covered in so much blood terrifies him. He knows from the smell that it's not just corn syrup and food dye like in the movies. Panic and fear churn inside of him, causing a nuclear meltdown. "Fuck! Shit! Why didn't you go to the hospital?"

"'Cause it's not that bad," Rick insists again. His knees buckle, but Negan's got him. "Most of the blood's not even mine. Just get me upstairs."

"You sure?" Negan studies Rick's expression. He doesn't want to be smothering or overprotective, but Negan could never forgive himself if he didn't do enough. He has paid for that particular sin once before.

Rick nods, so Negan hauls him up the stairs and into their master bathroom. Negan runs a hot bath and sits on the edge of the tub while Rick sheds his clothes.

"You wanna tell me what happened?" Negan asks.

"Not much to tell. Tussled with a werewolf."

"You didn't get bit, did you?"

"No," Rick says, peeling off his shirt with agonizing slowness. His arms move sluggishly, as though it hurts to raise them over his head. "You can see for yourself soon enough."

"Most people get shit-faced or party on New Year's. You? No, you gotta kill something."

Rick's shirt is off, and under the bright fluorescent lights of the bathroom, his wounds somehow look worse, their colors more visceral and striking. Negan catches sight of the symbol on Rick's chest, the tattoo he'd gotten last month after a particularly harrowing demon possession case. Rick had urged Negan to do the same, to ward off any chance of a demon wearing his skin; Negan didn't mind the extra ink.

"I hope you ganked it," Negan says when Rick doesn't answer.

"Wouldn't be here if I didn't."

Rick strips down, and his bloodied clothes lie in a heap on the tile. On a normal day, Negan would savor the sight of Rick's naked body, but the fire alarm of panic rings loud in his head, blocking out all other thoughts. Dumbly, he shuts off the faucet.

"Alright, get in, you dick, and let me clean you up."

Rick settles into the tub. His battered hand dips in and taints the water with a coppery color. Negan removes Rick's right hand from the water and unravels the bandage. His palm bears a deep slice that must have been a pain in the ass on the drive home. Shit, the slightest movement must tear this fucker open anew. Negan feels faint, hears himself make a helpless noise in his throat.

"Sucks for you" says Rick. "That's my good hand."

"You ain't off the hook. Your mouth still works."

Rick chuckles.

Negan examines the cut. It's deeper than he's comfortable with. A wound like this probably needs stitches, or at least a doctor's trained eye. "You need to get this sewn up. Hands are full of tendons and shit. You don't wanna lose it, especially since it's your good hand."

"Damn." Rick sighs, sinking deeper into the water, as though he might be able to disappear beneath its depths and take his problems with him.

"Want me to drive you?"

"I'll be fine. I made it home."

"I'm more worried about you falling asleep on the drive there."

Rick shakes his head. "I won't be sleeping for a while. And somebody needs to stay with the kids. They alright?"

"Yeah. Fine and dandy." Negan pushes at Rick's shoulders; Rick takes the hint and submerges himself deep enough to get his hair wet. When he rises back to the top, Negan gets the shampoo going. "Judy wanted to stay up. We made hot cocoa while we waited."

Rick tilts his head a little to peek at Negan, one eye squinted shut to prevent any suds from dripping in. "You didn't spike hers with Kahlúa, did you?"

"I had to get her to sleep somehow," Negan jokes, and Rick knows it, because he's laughing with him.

The hot water does its job of relaxing Rick, and Negan takes his time washing Rick's hair. He's still a little punch-drunk from the blow of seeing Rick all bloodied, and he's having a hell of a time processing the last thirty minutes.

This is what he's always feared, that the job would take Rick away in pieces before eventually taking him whole. He's always worried about Rick, but he has ignored the dangerous reality of the job, too confident in Rick's capabilities. Tonight has cut through Negan's wall of denial and shown him the gruesome reality. He is devastated that this day has come, but relieved it's not as bad as it could have been.

At least Rick is alive.

Negan's fingers work over Rick's scalp. "Maybe it's time you start thinkin' about hiring a partner. You can't tell me the buddy system wouldn't have helped here."

Rick exhales in that way of his when he thinks Negan's idea is stupid but doesn't want to outright say so. "Negan…"

"C'mon, what's it gonna take for you to realize this lone wolf shit is gonna get you killed? Is that what you want for your kids? For both of their parents to die to these fuckers?"

"I don't trust a stranger to have my best interests at heart."

Negan spreads his arms like he's trying to fly, which is a wasted gesture since Rick's not even facing him. "Hello? What about me, asshole?"

Rick turns in the bathtub to get a better look at him, like he doesn't understand. "What _about_ you?"

"I could be your partner."

Rick makes a face that isn't reassuring at all.

"That'd solve your stranger-danger problem. And nobody else would look out for you the way I will."

Rick's breathing is lighter now but still carries an edge of judgment. Negan rinses Rick's hair while he thinks.

"You don't know what's out there," Rick finally says.

"I read your diary. I can study it. I taught myself how to play guitar when I was a dumbfuck teenager; I think I can teach myself some lore."

"It's not safe." Rick's voice lacks most of its usual conviction for this argument, enough to indicate he's just reading from the script.

Negan lifts Rick's lacerated hand out of the water. "Exhibit fuckin' A."

"What if something happens to both of us? If it's just me out there, then the kids still have you."

"Rick, if shit goes that far south, I want you to forget about me and get your sweet ass home safe. I'd do the same for you."

"You'd leave me to die? Mr. Romantic," Rick laughs, skimming his undamaged hand along the length of Negan's arm. Negan feels chills prickle over his skin.

"If it means your kids don't end up as orphans, fuck yeah. Sorry, honey."

"They're not just mine. They're yours too."

Negan's heart swells in a way he's only experienced once before when Lucille told him she was pregnant. "You're doing a damn fine job of avoiding the question."

"I'll think about it," Rick says, which means he will not, in fact, think about it at all.

"You say that every time. Somethin' tells me not a lot of thinking goes on in here." Negan pokes Rick's head like he's making a point.

"It's late, and I'm tired. Can I sleep on it?"

"I guess you've earned it."

* * *

Negan stirs when the mattress dips under Rick's weight. It's six a.m., and Rick has returned from the hospital, his hand neatly stitched and wrapped.

Negan rolls onto his back, and Rick slides beside him into the warm cocoon of blankets. "Everything okay?"

"Can't use it for a couple weeks." Rick lifts his bandaged hand. "But you're in luck: my mouth still works."

Negan laughs and curls an arm around Rick. "And you got a whole 'nother hand."

"So we got options."

Rick's injured hand lies on Negan's stomach; Negan lifts it to his mouth and kisses Rick's fingers. "Doesn't hurt too much, does it?"

"I got painkillers. I'm good," Rick murmurs. His head's lying on Negan's shoulder, and Negan knows that arm will go numb later, but right now he's content to have Rick so close. "Can I sleep in? I'm beat."

"Fuck yeah, I got it covered. Sleep all day if you need to. I'm just glad you're alright." Negan's fingers play in Rick's hair. "I'd go out of my fuckin' mind if I lost you, Rick."

"I know," Rick mumbles. He's fading fast, his words slurring as his consciousness dims. "Love you too."

Rick's asleep before Negan can get the last word.


	13. Chapter 13

_January 2015_

Rick takes Negan on his first case in the middle of January. It's not a hunt, but instead the standard P.I. fare—following some guy around to see if he's cheating on his wife. Negan looks disappointed that he won't get to kill anything tonight.

They're parked a couple houses down from the target's house in Rick's inconspicuous Mazda 3—a Christmas present from Negan, which Rick's still awed by. Negan's shifting in the passenger seat like he's uncomfortable or just restless.

"Was this what you imagined?" Rick asks with an edge of amusement.

"Full offense, Rick, but this is boring as shit. How the fuck do you get through this crap on your own?"

They've been sitting in the car for two hours, waiting for signs of movement from the house. According to the client, her husband was going on a business trip, but from the looks of it he had other business in mind.

"I listen to your music," Rick says, taking note of the arrogant smile that curls on Negan's mouth. "Not real easy to fall asleep to."

Negan cocks an eyebrow. "Is that a challenge?"

"If you wanna take it that way."

"You know I take it _all_ sorts of ways." Negan does something filthy with his tongue that makes Rick laugh.

Rick takes a sip of coffee from his thermos. "It's not that bad, havin' somebody around. Reminds me of"—he doesn't want to say 'better days,' because that's debatable—"who I used to be."

"See? I told you making this a two-man job wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."

"It helps that it's you."

"I am mighty fine fucking company."

"You're alright," Rick teases. His fingers flex around the wheel. His right hand has healed from the slice he received two weeks ago. There's a long white scar through the middle of his palm, marking where the cut had been.

"You ever think this is how we'd be spending our anniversary?" Negan wonders aloud.

Rick snaps his gaze toward Negan. Did their first anniversary slip his mind? "Is that today?" No, it can't be. Is his memory that bad already?

"The day we met. That's when it all started."

"A little presumptuous, huh?" Rick says, a little bewildered by Negan's sentimentality.

"Alright, where're you countin' from, then?"

"First kiss."

Negan makes an argumentative noise.

"What? That's a normal anniversary checkpoint."

"It's only a couple days' difference. Don't be such a hard-ass."

"Thought you liked that."

Rick will never get over the way Negan's expression changes when he's said something flirty. Negan doesn't seem to expect anything remotely sassy out of Rick, so he's surprised and aroused every time it happens.

"Either way," Rick says, lifting his coffee tumbler, "happy anniversary."

Negan raises his can of Red Bull and completes the toast. "Can't believe it's been a whole fucking year. Sucks I was gone for most of it."

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

"Not where it really matters. You miss out on a lot."

"But you're here now. That's somethin'."

* * *

Their first paranormal case as a team comes from their neighbor Jessie Anderson.

"Pete hasn't been himself lately," she says when the three of them are gathered in Rick's office. Rick's sitting behind his desk while Negan sits off to the side.

"How's that?" Rick asks.

"He's… different," Jessie says, as if searching for the right set of words that will make them believe her. "There's just something off about him. When you've been married for a while…" Her voice dovetails. "And I know it sounds crazy, but last night… His eyes were completely black. Like, his actual eyes. Pupils, white part, everything. I asked him if he was okay, and he—" She stops, shakes her head. She covers her wrist with her hand, and though she's wearing long sleeves, it's not hard to imagine what might lay underneath.

Rick notices the way Negan's jaw tightens.

"How long has your husband been acting like this?" Rick says to Jessie.

"Maybe a week or so? I just noticed the black eyes last night, but he could have had them longer than that. He gets home late a lot, and I'm not always awake."

"Got any ideas on how to approach him?"

Jessie wrings her hands. "The boys and I will stay at my mother's place tonight. There's a spare key underneath the owl statue out front. Pete usually gets home from work around seven." She looks at Negan and Rick. "What are you planning?"

"Something involving an old priest and a young priest," Negan says.

* * *

"You're thinkin' demon?" Rick asks when Jessie's left the office.

Negan nods. "Black eyes, right? Why don't we pop over there and check for sulfur?"

Rick smiles to himself, pleased by how quickly Negan learns. "This is your show, Negan."

Using the spare key, they slip into the Andersons' house a little after five. Jessie has taken Ron and Sam to their grandmother's house; Carl is keeping an eye on Judith at home, since he's fifteen and can handle a bit of responsibility. Rick carries in a backpack full of supplies: holy water, weapons, and his hunting journal, which contains the exorcism Rituale Romanum.

Negan crouches by a floor vent in the entryway. He swipes a finger over the metal and sniffs at the powdery residue. His face scrunches up. "Sulfur. Definitely a demon possession. Else Pete's just a grade-A dick with a house that could use a deep cleaning."

Rick studies the living room, planning in his head how the confrontation might go. Pete won't simply agree to an exorcism, regardless of whether he's actually possessed; they'll have to restrain him while they perform the ritual. There are plenty of chairs they can tie him to, and Rick's got a decent amount of rope in his bag. Negan has brought along a baseball bat wrapped with barbed wire, which seems a little excessive.

"What's with the bat?" Rick asks as Negan rises. Negan rests the Louisville Slugger against his shoulder.

"Iron for spirits. Brute force for everything else."

"Guess I should've asked _why_ the bat?"

"Lucille was a fan, even though Indiana has fuck-all for major league teams. But she was surrounded by 'em: Tigers, Reds, Cubs…"

Rick supposes Negan wanted to coordinate with the tattoo on his right arm. "So the tattoo was, what, a premonition?"

"You could say that."

"So how do you wanna play this?" Rick asks.

"Well, if he's possessed, he'll flinch at the name of God, right? So we'll try that first, then follow up with a hot, sticky load of holy water."

"That might be the unholiest thing you've ever said."

"Not even in my top ten."

Pete comes through the door just as Negan and Rick finish setting up. He doesn't look too thrilled to see either of them, but Pete isn't generally a friendly guy on the best of days. His face is scrunched up in a scowl. "What're you idiots doing here? Where's Jessie?"

"We need to have a little chat, Pete," Negan says, stepping closer. "About our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."

Pete's blue eyes are now pitch black, even the sclera. Just as Jessie said.

"Ooh, you got somethin' in your eyes there, bud. How 'bout some eyedrops?" Negan reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a plastic bottle of holy water. With a flick of his wrist, he slings the water at Pete's face.

There's hissing sound when the water hits Pete's skin. He recoils with an inhuman howl of pain, his hands flying up to cover his burning eyes.

Negan laughs. "How do you like that shit?"

Pete's skin sizzles and pops, and he lunges at Negan with a roar.

Rick's instincts tell him to intervene, but he doesn't have time. Negan kicks at Pete's ankle. Pete yelps and goes down in a tumble. He makes an "oof" sound upon impact, then Negan's on top of him, pinning his wrists to the wood floor.

"Give me the rope!" Negan orders, so Rick pulls it from the bag. Pete's bucking like a furious bull, trying to throw Negan off. "Will you fuckin' chill for a goddamn second?"

Sensing that Negan might need a bit of help, Rick wraps the rope around Pete's wrists. Pete struggles against his restraints. "You crazy assholes!"

"We're trying to help you, dickhead!"

"Like you helped Lucille?" Pete sneers. His eyes are black as midnight, and there's a slight difference in the timbre of his voice now, a tangible aura of evil; this is the demon speaking through him.

Negan pauses for a moment before hauling Pete upright and smashing the heel of his hand across Pete's face. Pete goes slack. "Man, you aren't the brightest bulb in the box, are ya? It's a real dumb fuckin' idea to insult the guy who's got you tied up." He drags Pete into the center of the living room and shoves him into a chair. Rick uses the rest of the rope to bind Pete. Underneath him is a circular doormat with a devil's trap painted on, to inhibit the demon from moving beyond the confines of the symbol.

Negan slaps Pete's face to wake him up. Pete scoffs a wet laugh, spitting a glob of shiny blood onto the floor. "Rick Grimes," Pete says with a sinister smile, looking past Negan. "I thought you worked solo."

"Wait, you black-eyed bastards know him?" asks Negan.

"Know him? He's the Ted Bundy of demon killers."

Rick rolls his eyes. That's a bit of an exaggeration.

"And now he's got a partner," Negan says with a grin. "And I'm more of a Carl Panzram kind of guy." He glances over his shoulder at Rick. "Can I use the bat?"

"We need him alive," Rick says, shaking his head. Demons like to wear out the bodies of the people they possess; no need to cause further damage if it's not necessary.

Negan sighs like showing restraint is some great sacrifice. He takes out the holy water flask and splashes Pete again. Pete snarls a sound of hate and pain, thrashing against the ropes as his skin burns.

"You hunters are all the same," Demon Pete hisses through his teeth. "You lose someone to one of us, and you think that gives you the right to destroy our kind? We have to feed and breed just like you. What makes your existence worth protecting over ours?"

"Because you're evil, dipshit."

"I think you get off on this," Demon Pete says. "Well-adjusted people don't start hunting ghosts. No, you boys are a little bloodthirsty. I know the type." A dark smile crawls across his face like a spider. "You'll fit right in when you get to Hell."

"Do you think you sound bad-ass?" Negan wonders. "Like this is your big Jack Nicholson 'you can't handle the truth' speech?"

Demon Pete ignores Negan's attempts to get a rise out of him. "Every Hell-bound soul turns into one of us. Some of them just take a little longer. But it'll happen. It happened to Lucille."

Negan freezes, his body stiffening as though he's been hit with a cattle prod. Rick knows shit's about to go downhill fast. He digs through his backpack, searching for the duct tape.

"You're lying," Negan growls. "She didn't go to Hell."

"She took her own life, Negan," says Demon Pete. "That's a big no-no."

"No! She was a good fucking person! No way she ended up in Hell for one damn mistake!"

Rick finds the roll of tape. He uses his teeth to tear off a strip. He has to shut the demon up before this whole thing goes south.

"Your sweet Lucille had a vicious streak," Demon Pete says. "It didn't take her long to start torturing souls herself, and she had quite a talent—"

Rick slaps the tape over Pete's mouth. "Shut up."

"Wait!" Negan reaches out to rip off the tape.

Rick grabs Negan's wrist and stops him. "You believe him? He's a demon. Messing with your head, lying: that's what they do."

"What if he's telling the truth?"

"So what?"

Negan looks like he's just been slapped. It's a rare look of hurt and vulnerability, and Rick wants to reach up and smooth it away.

"She's at peace now because of you," says Rick. "Whatever he says, it doesn't matter."

Negan clenches his fist, as if he's going to hit Pete again. Rick doesn't much care if Negan does or not, so he gives him a moment to make the decision. Negan exhales a long sigh and loosens his fingers. "Fine. Let's smoke this asshole while I'm still feelin' generous."

Rick props his phone up on the kitchen counter, angles the camera lens to get a good view of Pete and the show to come. One of the things he's learned on the job is that people don't tend to believe it when you tell them they were possessed by a demon. Recording their unnatural behavior or physical characteristics creates evidence that's difficult to explain away. Sure, some of them block, deny, and argue it's trick photography or special effects, but the majority see those videos and realize their understanding of the world is vastly limited.

While Negan splashes Pete with holy water, Rick reads from the Rituale Romanum: " _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio_ …" Pete struggles against the ropes and the duct tape, his muffled screams melding with Rick's recitation: " _Infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica_!"

The first half of the incantation is meant to expel the demon from its vessel; as Rick finishes his part, he rips the tape off of Pete's mouth so the inky black spirit has a way out. Pete's head drops back as though he's a human Pez dispenser, and a thick stream of charcoal smoke explodes from his gaping mouth, like the plume from an oil well fire. The smell of sulfur fills the air as the smoke spirals towards the ceiling. But the devil's trap beneath Pete prohibits the smoke-bound demon from escaping through the vents. It is trapped here until the exorcism is complete.

Rick hands Negan the journal, and Negan continues reading: " _Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te_ …"

The smoke swirls in angry ribbons, unable to move beyond the confines of the devil's trap. As Negan reads, a ball of bright light bursts from the center of the smoke, vaporizing the black billows as it expands. By the time he's finished with the exorcism, the smoke is gone. Pete seems to have passed out, his head lolled on his chest.

Rick gives Pete a couple light slaps to the cheek. "Wake up."

Pete groans and blinks awake. Seeing Negan and Rick standing over him probably isn't a comforting sight, and being tied to a chair doesn't make this seem any less sketchy, in retrospect. "What the hell's going on?" Pete grumbles.

"Demon rode you hard and put you away wet," Negan says. "Don't worry; it doesn't make you any less of a man."

"Yeah, you'd know all about that, huh?"

Negan slings more holy water at Pete. The water doesn't burn or sting his skin, only seems to piss him off. "Well, demon's gone. You've just got a terminal case of bein' a dick."

"Where's Jessie and the kids?" Pete tries to move, but the ropes stop him from making much headway. "Why am I tied up?"

"C'mon, you've seen The Exorcist. You know how this shit goes down."

Pete blinks, as though a fog in his brain is lifting. "You're saying I was possessed by a demon?"

"Hey, you finally got one!"

"I'll let Jessie know you're alright," Rick tells him, retrieving his cell phone from the kitchen counter. As he types out a text to Jessie, he listens to Negan and Pete's conversation.

"Why do I taste blood?" Pete asks.

"Demon You wasn't too thrilled about fleeing your meatsuit." Negan shrugs. "And you were pretty mouthy."

"So you punched me?"

"It got the job done."

"You people are crazy," Pete says with disbelief.

"Then explain this." Rick strides over to them and plays the video he recorded of Pete's exorcism. While Pete watches the screen, Rick watches his face. Pete's expression shifts from skepticism, to shock, to denial, then to resignation, all in the span of about three minutes. Rick's done plenty of exorcisms; he knows the beats: shock comes right around the point where the demon billows out of its vessel's mouth.

Pete shuts his eyes, shaking his head like he can make what he's seen go away. "No, no. That's not real. You guys faked that. Like—like those Paranormal Activity movies."

"I wouldn't even know how to do that shit if I wanted to," Negan says. "You think, what, your wife hired us to beat you up and fake an exorcism? And _we're_ s'posed to be the crazy ones?"

Rick begins untying Pete from the chair. "Jessie's on her way home with the kids. My advice? Clean yourself up and make amends."

Negan's standing in front of Pete, ready for him to try something stupid once he's untied. Pete, however, does the smart thing and just rubs the spots on his arms and wrists where the ropes chafed. "W—wait, what if this thing—this demon—comes back?"

Rick digs through the backpack and takes out a charm necklace. "Here," he says, placing the charm in Pete's hand. "This'll ward off possession. Keep it on you."

"Or you can get it tattooed if you're not a jewelry kind of guy." Negan tugs aside the v-neck of his t-shirt to display the charm symbol tattooed on the right side of his chest. "Chicks dig ink, lemme tell ya."

Once the ropes are fully loosened, Pete tries standing up. His footing's a little shaky, but he's upright. "And you do this demon-monster stuff for a living?"

Negan smirks and says, "Aren't you lucky?"

* * *

Later, in bed with the lights out, Negan asks, "If demons are real, you think there's angels out there somewhere?"

"I've never seen one," Rick says from beside him.

"You just missed a prime opportunity to be smooth as fuck. That was the part where you say, 'I've got one right here,' and make out with me."

Rick chortles. "That is… not smooth. And no angel would do what you just did to me."

Negan can still taste Rick—slick and salt-bitter—on his tongue. "Angel in the streets, devil in the sheets."

"Not even then." Rick turns onto his side, his body warm and provocative against Negan's arm. "But if you were bein' serious… no, I was never much of a believer."

"But you told Carl and Judy their Mom's up in Heaven."

"They're kids. They needed something to believe in. Would it've been better if I told them the truth? That, if you're lucky, you die and nothing happens, and if you're not, your spirit's trapped here 'til someone puts you to rest?"

Negan thinks that would be a hard pill to swallow for a kid as young as Carl or Judith had been at the time of Lori's death. Hell, even now, in Judith's case.

"They'll grow out of it, same way they do with Santa and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny," Rick says.

"The existence of demons doesn't make you wonder? If evil's out there, there's gotta be good too, don't you think?"

"Sure, but that doesn't mean good's gotta be God or angels. Good is just regular people doing the right thing."

"Why not both?" Negan asks.

"If angels exist, then that means there's a God. So if God's out there, where is he? Why doesn't he help?"

"Maybe it's like that Bette Midler song: everything looks fine from a distance."

Rick momentarily stares at him, like he can't fathom Negan's awareness of music that doesn't feature screaming guitars. "All I'm sayin' is I've never crossed paths with an angel, never heard a reputable source who has. I got faith in what I see. You want me to believe, I'm gonna need some hard proof."

Negan grins and takes his cue. "I got somethin' hard for you," he says, grabbing Rick's hand and slipping it underneath the sheets.


	14. Chapter 14

_February 2015_

Rick and Negan spend Valentine's Day infiltrating the lair of a Soul Eater. Or, rather, Rick infiltrates the lair while Negan hangs back in the house where the creature built its nest. To kill the monster, Negan's tasked with painting a blood sigil inside the house; Rick's job is to paint that same sigil inside the Soul Eater's lair.

The Soul Eater exists on a plane between the human world and another, a place that exists outside of time and space. For Rick to enter this altered plane, the Soul Eater must grab him and pull him into its nest. While Negan paints downstairs, Rick walks around the house, challenging the monster with his presence. There's a moment of blackness, of weightlessness, then…

Rick comes to inside the creature's lair. It's a dessicated, gloomy version of the client's house, as though the place has been abandoned after a nuclear fallout. Fog floats in the darkness. Rick is tasked with searching Benjamin, the teeenage boy who lives here with his parents; the kid is hospitalized and comatose, his soul being siphoned away by the monster. If Rick can find him in the nest, he can lead Benjamin's soul to safety, and the boy will awaken from his coma.

As he wanders through the dusty darkness, Rick opens up a door. In the real house, this door leads to the laundry room; in the Soul Eater's lair, it opens to reveal Negan lying on the dirt-caked floor of an empty room. A shadowy human figure crouches over him, pressing the barrel of a pistol underneath Negan's chin. The figure is blurry and out of focus, like something obscene censored on an episode of Cops. Rick can't identify the shadow man, but he knows it's not the Soul Eater.

Rick moves toward Negan, reaching out for him, but Negan's not really there. This isn't happening. When a victim is trapped in the monster's nest, the Soul Eater shows them distressing visions to keep the subject weakened and docile.

Rick can't see much—the room is too dark and foggy—but he hears Negan's labored breathing from inside that room. Sharp, panicked rasps of air.

The shadow figure says something to Negan in a voice that sounds both familiar and alien: "Believe me, I wish it didn't have to be this way, but you brought this on yourself."

"Pull the fucking trigger, limp dick," Negan snarls, breathing hard with the effort. "'Cause if you don't, I'm gonna paint the walls with your brains."

"That's no way to start things off between us," the man says with a disarming chuckle. "But that's what I like about you, Negan. You've got spunk. Moxie."

"Go to hell," Negan spits.

Rick squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them again, Negan and the mysterious man are gone.

 _It's not real. It's not real,_ Rick tells himself.

Rick heads up the staircase. The stairs bend and creak under his weight. His hand slides along the banister and picks up a thick film of dust. The first door he opens shows him Carl lying on the floor, a puddle of something dark beneath his head. Rick flinches away, shutting his eyes; Carl is gone when he looks again.

Rick finds Benjamin in one of the bedrooms. The teen is huddled in the corner of the room, and even though he starts to scoot away when Rick approaches, he stops as Rick moves closer.

"You're Ben?" Rick asks in a quiet voice. Benjamin nods. "I'm Rick. I'm gonna get you out of here."

"Did you see him?"

"See who?"

"The guy with no eyes."

Rick shakes his head.

"It's okay. I didn't see him at first either."

Rick extends a hand to Benjamin. "C'mon, let's get you home. Your mom's real worried about you." Benjamin takes Rick's hand, and Rick leads him out the door. "Stay close, okay? You might see people you know, but they're not really there. This thing's trying to trick you."

They head down the stairs, to the wall in the living room where, on another plane of reality, Negan is painting the sigil. Rick drags the blade of his knife along his forearm, taking care not to cut too deeply.

"What are you doing?" Benjamin asks.

"Getting us out of here." Using his own blood, Rick begins to paint the sigil on the wall. There's got to be an easier way to do this, he thinks. He should look into storing his blood in containers, the way a blood bank or a hospital might, so, instead of slicing himself, he can just grab a bag of blood and go.

As Rick finishes the sigil, Benjamin yelps, "Oh shit!"

Rick turns around, knife at the ready. Standing on the other side of the room is a tall, pale figure with empty black sockets where its eyes would be. It speaks, but not from its mouth. Its voice is disturbingly soothing, like the voice of a smooth jazz radio host. "I can't let you leave," it says.

Rick sees Negan again, but this time it's worse. Negan looks as though he's been torn apart by a shark. Huge, ragged claw marks perforate Negan's torso, to the point that his insides spill out through the gashes. Before Rick can remind himself to blink, Carl's standing there too. About half of Carl's head has been ripped away, and his mangled eyeball hangs from what once was his eye socket by a thin ligament.

Benjamin sees something too. He cries, "Mom!" and rushes toward the figure and its illusions.

"Ben, no!"

Rick takes a step forward to grab Ben, but the Soul Eater's in between them now. It places a pale hand with impossibly long fingers on Rick's chest. "You're afraid of losing them," it says in its weirdly calming voice. "I can keep them safe. I can keep all of you safe."

Rick falls into blackness.

* * *

"Shit! Goddamn it! Why haven't we figured out a better way to do this?" Negan swears, struggling to paint the sigil on the living room wall. There's supposed to be, what, a couple gallons of blood in the human body, right? So where the fuck is it all when he needs it? He wipes his fingertips over the cut on his forearm, smears them on the wallpaper, but he's coming up short on the amount of blood needed to fully paint the sigil.

Negan glances over his shoulder, peering at Rick passed out in the kitchen. "I hope you're havin' more luck than me. What's this freaky asshole's lair all about? Is it like a dream, where you're slowed down, or—"

Negan stops, sensing something in the corner of his eye. His hand immediately goes to his bat propped against the wall. His fingers curl around the handle. But when he turns his head to look, he doesn't see the Soul Eater. Instead, he sees Lucille lying lifeless in the bathtub, the way he'd found her that awful morning. Bile rises in his throat, and he makes a tiny choked sound.

 _These things will try to scramble your brain, to show you things that aren't real. Don't let them._

Rick told him that, and Negan knows this is an illusion, because Lucille's body doesn't exist anymore, and there's no reason for a bathtub to be in the living room. But the image is so visceral and out of place that it roots him to the ground, sends him right back to that horrifying moment.

Negan shuts his eyes.

 _It's not real. It's not real._

When he opens them, he sees Rick's slumped form against the fridge, eviscerated and mangled. Rick's right hand appears to have been chewed off by some kind of creature. His left hand is clutched against his stomach to contain insides that desperately want to be on his outside.

Negan closes his eyes again.

 _Not real._

This time, a thin, tall figure with empty sockets for eyes greets Negan when his sight returns.

"Holy crap! You are freaky as shit!" Negan says with a little gasp. His hand tightens around the bat.

The creature speaks in a soft, disarming voice. "I can take you to them," it says, reaching out a hand bearing fingers like spider legs. "Come with me."

"I don't think so." Negan swings the bat at the creature. The Soul Eater, made of smoke, dissolves into wisps. Negan props the bat against his thigh so he can swipe up the fresh blood oozing from the cut on his arm. He's wiping bloody fingers over the wallpaper when the creature materializes to his right. Negan yelps, grabbing for the bat, but he's flying across the room and crashing into the wall too quickly. The bat rolls across the hardwood floor and underneath a chair.

"Fuck!" Negan scrambles to his feet. The impact made him woozy, and his body isn't thrilled about being up and moving so soon after colliding with a wall. His back and legs protest every movement. He makes a dive for the bat. The Soul Eater casts a hand out like it's conducting an orchestra, and Negan feels himself being thrown, moved as though by an invisible crane. He crashes into the coffee table, and an explosion of pain rockets through him. The table does not break apart the way Negan expected it would in this situation; every single action movie he's ever seen has lied to him.

The Soul Eater reaches down, its needle fingers threatening to pierce Negan's face.

Rick's warning sounds in Negan's head, his voice as clear as if he were in the room: _Don't let it touch you._

Ignoring the pain throbbing in his muscles, Negan rolls. He tumbles away from the creature's grasp until his movement is stopped by a chair.

He sees the bat.

Negan throws out his hand, scrabbling for the weapon. It's just beyond his reach, his fingertips barely missing the handle, even when he stretches out so far he fears his joints and ligaments will snap.

"Come with me," the Soul Eater says again. It seems to be flickering in and out of focus, the way the picture does on a television with a wonky antenna.

Negan grabs the legs of the chair and swings it at the creature. The chair sails through the Soul Eater's ghostly form and clatters against the wall. He hadn't expected the attack to do much, but it got the chair out of the way. He can grab the bat now.

Negan gets his fingers around the handle. He jabs the bat into the creature. The Soul Eater evaporates, temporarily thwarted by the iron wrapped around the bat barrel. Negan gets to his feet and hurries back to the wall where the sigil waits. In the scuffle, the cut on his arm opened up. He has more than enough blood now. His hand smears red over the flower-patterned wallpaper.

"I can keep you safe," the creature says from behind Negan, and, oh, Jesus, he can feel its cold aura, he's not gonna make it, just a little more—

The Soul Eater explodes in a burst of white light the moment Negan finishes the sigil. Rick must have completed his own painting from the other side. The sigil glows red, creating a portal to the other side. As the illuminated doorway fades, Rick stirs from the kitchen.

Negan exhales a sigh of relief. "'Bout fuckin' time you woke up."

Rick gives him a look of confused aggravation as he hauls himself to his feet.

"You find the kid?"

"I found him," Rick says, gripping the handle of the refrigerator door for balance. "He disappeared when you finished the sigil. He should be back in his body. I'll call his parents, see if he woke up."

"What was it like in there?" Negan asks.

Rick thinks for a moment. "Very… Silent Hill."

Negan laughs. "Fucking awesome."

"Not from where I'm standing." Rick looks at him. "You good?"

"Good as gold, honey."

* * *

Negan hums on the ride home, a habit that drives Rick up the goddamn wall. He considers cranking up the stereo to drown Negan out, but Rick isn't the passive-aggressive type.

"If you don't stop humming, I'm gonna throw you out of this car," Rick says instead.

Negan just laughs, which isn't the reaction Rick was hoping for. "You wouldn't dare."

Whether Rick would or not is beside the point. "Have fun walking home in the cold."

"On Valentine's Day? That's pretty damn cold-hearted, baby."

"Then either sing or don't. No humming."

Negan chuckles, amused by Rick's feigned anger. "Yes, Daddy."

Rick makes a face, which makes Negan laugh harder. "I would give anything to unhear what you just said."

They make it home late. Carl texted around ten letting Rick know he picked up Judith from Tara and Rosita's place. The house is dark and quiet when Negan and Rick get inside. Negan heads upstairs. Rick lingers in the kitchen, grabbing a piece of the Valentine's Day cake Negan made for him. Decorated with Judith's help, the cake boasts fudge drizzle, chocolate chunks, colorful sprinkles and M&Ms, and strawberry halves on top of fluffy white icing. He figures he'll need the sugar boost if he's going to accomplish anything else tonight, like showering.

It takes about five minutes for Rick's phone to vibrate in his back pocket from a text message: _**Get upstairs, asshole. It's Valentine's Day and I'm lonely**_

Rick writes back: _I'm more than just a piece of meat, y'know. I have feelings too_

Negan's reply pops onto the screen: _**So come upstairs and let me make sweet love to your feelings, Rick. Don't make me beg. I have my dignity.**_

Upon entering the bedroom, Rick sees Negan on their bed, fully clothed, holding his acoustic guitar. This is not what Rick expected to find.

"Oh, it's not a sex thing?" Rick claims the empty space beside Negan, sitting as though he is about to witness an enrapturing performance.

"Let's not rule anything out yet."

"So it _is_ a sex thing."

"Shut up and let me serenade you."

Negan plays him a song, and Rick recognizes the melody as the one Negan was humming in the car. Despite dating a musician, Rick knows nothing about composing music, and he wonders how long Negan has been sitting on this particular gem. Did he throw it together on a whim as a last-minute present to Rick? Or has he been altering and fine-tuning it for some time?

Hearing Negan sing for him—and only him—commences a flutter of wings in Rick's chest. The swirl of music, the harmony of the chords and Negan's voice reminds Rick of a time when he awakened with the sun streaking over his face and saw a thousand minute particles floating like stars in the amber light.

 _Got a heart without a home,_

 _On my own just like a rolling stone,_

 _Didn't know how to say good bye,_

 _The devil cast a shadow over all that I've known,_

 _Took the earth, the sea, and the garden I've grown,_

 _I don't know, all I could do was cry,_

 _But then you came, you called my name, you were just in time…_

 _Darling, you gave me love and gave me hope,_

 _Darling, you washed away the rain, you saved me,_

 _Just two lost and lonely souls, now we'll never walk alone,_

 _Darling darling you,_

 _Never let me go…_

Afterward, Negan looks at Rick and smiles. "Well, what do you think?"

Rick considers saying something flirty and coy ("I think if you wanna get me in bed, you can just ask"), but he knows better than to brush off Negan's emotions that way. Negan took the time to craft something heartfelt and sincere for Rick. That deserves an equally honest response.

"I think I'm very lucky to have you," Rick says instead.

Negan grins and says that, yes, he is.


	15. Chapter 15

April is a difficult month. First comes Lucille's birthday, which Negan does his damndest to forget, but the date is overlaid against his brain like a television screen with a burned-in image. He cannot escape it, especially now that he doesn't have a tour to distract him like he did last year.

The approaching bleak day isn't something Negan talks about, at least not until three days beforehand when he's in bed with Rick. Rick is mouthing kisses down the line of Negan's body, and Negan could not be more flaccid if he had medical assistance. His hand is curled in Rick's hair, a gesture of encouragement, but Negan's heart isn't in it. He appreciates Rick's effort and doesn't want to discourage him any more than his own limp cock already is.

Negan gazes at the ceiling, uninterested in watching Rick's mouth dole out swirling kisses and soft bites to his stomach. Rick's knuckles brush against Negan's skin, and his fingers grip the elastic of Negan's boxer briefs. He hesitates, perhaps noticing Negan's lack of an erection.

"You alright?" Rick asks with great concern.

Usually Negan's popping a boner at the slightest touch from Rick, or at least he makes some lewd comment about how hard he is. So Negan can see how his silence and lack of an erection is somewhat worrying to Rick.

"Guess I'm just not in the mood."

Rick doesn't buy it. He moves so he's lying beside Negan, so they're both staring at the ceiling. "Somethin' on your mind?"

Negan's mouth twitches. "I don't wanna bum you out."

"So what if you do? I can handle it."

Negan considers keeping this inside, but he knows how that will end. He still can't shake the feeling that his reluctance to talk about difficult topics and emotions with Lucille contributed to her death. While part of him knows that's bullshit, the other part of him isn't so sure, and is he really willing to take that chance?

"It's Lucille's birthday on the 13th," Negan finally confesses.

Rick makes a noise of understanding. He drapes an arm around Negan's middle. His skin is soft and warm. "You wanna be distracted? Or do you wanna do something?"

"Both. But if I don't think about it and pretend like it's not real, I feel like an asshole. I did that last year. So I should probably do something this time around."

"Well, whatever you decide, I'll be there if you need me."

* * *

When Lucille's birthday rolls around, Negan does the best he can to honor her: he plants sunflowers in the backyard. Among her varied interests, gardening was one of Lucille's favorite pastimes. Negan would often find her in their mansion's expansive backyard, white headphone cords dangling from her ears as she tended to the flowers. Sunflowers were her favorite, because they reminded Lucille of her parents' home in Indiana, of the stalks of sunflowers that grew there.

Later, Negan drives out to the cemetery. He isn't sure why; Lucille's body isn't in the coffin anymore. It just seems like the thing to do on your dead wife's birthday.

It's a bright, sunny day, and Negan recalls the sun had been shining when he buried Lucille, too. What would be the appropriate weather for a funeral, Negan wonders. Gloomy skies and rain strike him as too cliche and theatrical, but sunshine feels like an affront to grief, a too-soon reminder that the world moves on, for you and everyone else, even if today is the worst day of your life.

Negan rolls through the winding, hilly roads and drives through the open gate of the cemetery. He finds her resting place as though drawn there like a magnet. The dirt covering Lucille's grave has long since compacted after Negan and Rick disrupted it over a year ago. A fresh layer of grass has grown over the soil, speckled with tiny white flowers. Lucille would have liked those.

Negan stands there before the headstone and the mound of dirt marking Lucille's resting place. He considered bringing flowers, but he remembered seeing the bouquets and stuffed animals resting against headstones the last time he was here, just a brief visit before embarking on the tour. It was sad, he thought then, how weathered and abandoned those flowers and plush toys were, left to decay along with their intended recipients. So he'd decided against leaving flowers.

He doesn't talk to Lucille or anything like that. Everything corporeal that remained of her is now ashes, and who the hell knows what happened to her spirit when he salted and burned her body. Negan just stares at the etchings on her headstone, wonders how someone so vivacious and alive could be no more.

He lets the pain wash over him anew. Then he climbs back in the Charger and drives home.

* * *

That night, Rick finds Negan sitting on the back porch, staring out at the starry sky. A cloud of smoke billows from Negan's mouth. Rick slides open the door to join him, and he's immediately accosted by a wave of ganja.

"Since when do you smoke pot?" asks Rick, waving a hand through the smoke. In the fourteen months they've been together, Rick has not once seen Negan light up a joint, or even smelled weed on his clothes. But Negan was on the road for a good deal of those months, so maybe Rick doesn't know everything about his boyfriend's habits.

"You gonna arrest me, Sheriff?"

Rick joins him in one of the chairs on the patio. The wicker crackles under his weight. "That depends. You gonna share?"

Negan exhales a hearty, smoke-raspy laugh. "Like hell. You don't fuckin' smoke pot, Rick."

Rick's a little offended that Negan considers him such a square. He makes an aggravated noise and plucks the joint from between Negan's fingers. Negan's eyes widen in surprise as Rick takes a drag.

"Well, God damn, I stand corrected," says Negan, watching Rick inhale and hold in the smoke. "Never knew you were a stoner."

Rick feels the smoke crawling over his eyeballs. He exhales, coughs, because it's been at least twenty years since he's done this. Negan's mouth cracks a tiny smirk.

"Where'd you get this?"

"I'm a rock star. You think I don't have a pot dealer on speed-dial?"

Rick cocks an eyebrow, scrutinizing. He seriously doubts Negan is as much of a weed aficionado as he claims.

"Don't look at me like that." Negan grabs the joint, takes another pull. Pearl smoke leaves his mouth in a thin, wispy curl. "Simon knows a guy."

Rick has a feeling Negan's sudden craving for marijuana has more to do with Lucille's birthday than any sort of personal interest. "Is this a memorial joint?"

"I guess. Lucille liked getting high every once in a while, but I just want to not think about anything for a bit." Negan hands the joint back to Rick. "It's been a hard fucking day for me."

Being peacefully stoned sounds like the nicest thing in the world right now, so Rick accepts the joint from Negan and takes a long drag. The smoke tickles his throat, and he coughs again.

"When was the last time you lit one up?" Negan asks.

"Oh, God, probably…"—Rick attempts to recall the memory—"I don't remember exactly. But I was much younger, I know that. Maybe high school." It had, of course, been Shane who supplied Rick with the weed.

Negan makes a sound of disbelief. "Jesus! You're such a Dudley Do-Right."

"You picked me," Rick reminds him. "That says a lot about you, too."

"Maybe I wanna corrupt you a little." Negan steals the joint for another puff.

"Well, you succeeded. I've done and said things in bed with you that make me feel dirty." Just the memory of one of those moments makes Rick's face heat up.

Negan's grin gleams in the moonlight as smoke emerges from his nostrils, like a dragon. He goes quiet for a moment, and Rick wonders what he's thinking about. The inside of Negan's head seems like a strange and frightening place.

Negan takes another long drag. His breath is a smoky mist with a palpable high. "My birthday's comin' up," he says somberly, the way a person might speak of an upcoming root canal.

Rick knows this, since he ended up researching it after Negan's generosity during Carl and Judith's birthdays; it's not like Negan was telling him. Of course, by that point, Negan's birthday had passed, and Rick felt that he'd withheld the information on purpose.

"I guess you don't want a cake," Rick says. A shame, really. Judith would have had fun helping Rick bake and decorate a birthday cake for Negan.

"I'm gonna be forty-nine this year. Which means I'm almost fifty. Which means I'm probably too old to like the shit I like." As though to emphasize—or demonstrate—his point, Negan takes another puff before offering the joint to Rick.

"Careful. I'm not too far behind you." Rick helps himself to a pull. There is a seven-year difference between them, give or take a couple months, and knowing that feels strangely comforting; it's not as big of a gap as Rick had thought before taking a quick peek at Negan's Wikipedia page. "Did your first wife tell you that?"

Negan offers a slight nod. "She wanted the band to be Pink Floyd, or The Beatles post-Sergeant Pepper's. But we're not cerebral, up-our-own-asses kind of guys. She said there's nothing sadder than old rock stars still performing the songs they wrote in their youth, going on about partying and rocking like they're still in their twenties." He frowns while he says this, as though repeating it has dredged up the memory.

"How old was she?"

"About my age. So maybe all that bullshit was more about her than it was about me."

Rick figured as much. "Did you ever ask her why she married you if she hated your music?"

"Yeah, once. She said, 'I thought I saw something in you. I guess I was wrong.'" Negan curls a hand into a fist on the armrest of the chair; Rick can't tell if Negan's angry with himself or She Who Must Not Be Named. Maybe both.

"Listen," says Rick, empassioned. He leans closer to Negan as the joint burns lazily between his fingers. Smoke wafts into his nostrils, heightening his buzz. "Finding something or someone that makes you happy is the whole point of being alive."

"Isn't that a little selfish?"

"No. Think about all the fans who tell you your music got them through hard times." Rick has read some of the heartfelt comments left by grateful fans on Negan's Instagram; he can only imagine what they might tell Negan in person. "You said it yourself: music gave you a reason to keep going, made you feel real again. Now you're giving that feeling back and helping other people, kids like Carl. After Lori died, he got that guitar at Glenn's garage sale and taught himself how to play, because he heard somebody's music and thought, 'I wanna do that too.'"

Negan's eyes are spaced and red from the weed, but Rick's words seem to be sinking in. His mouth is set in that way of his when he's considering something.

"Willie Nelson still performs, and he's, what, eighty?" Rick offers.

"He sure as shit wouldn't let good pot go to waste," says Negan, plucking the joint from Rick's fingers and finishing it off in one drag. He inhales long and deep, letting the smoke nestle in his lungs and make a home there before slowly exhaling in hazy rings. Rick watches, one part curious, two parts annoyed by his stoner boyfriend's prowess. "So you wouldn't be embarrassed if I'm still doing songs like 'Rock Me Baby' and 'Party' when I'm fifty? Or sixty?"

"No. Would you be embarrassed if I'm still chasin' monsters?"

"I'd be proud as fuck if you could gank vampires and ghosts in your old age."

Rick hasn't really considered his career longevity, but he knows he can't do the monster-hunting gig forever. At some point, he'll have to hang up the shotguns and rock salt.

Negan blots out the stub of a joint. "Let's go upstairs. I'm baked as shit, and I wanna enjoy it."

Rick isn't entirely sure what that entails—he's never seen Negan high before—but he's happy to follow him anywhere.


	16. Chapter 16

Each month doles out punches, but Negan finds it's easier to take them on the chin. First, the month of May brings the empty sadness of Mother's Day in the Grimes household. Negan does his best to distract the kids, because they're the ones who need it the most. A stack of confetti pancakes before school is all it takes to cheer Judith up, but Carl is every bit the sullen teenager. He knows what Mother's Day means, remembers what he's missing out on. Judith was about two when Lori died, probably not old enough to remember her mother with any real permanence, which strikes Negan as impossibly sad.

"C'mon, Carl, I'll let you drive the Charger after school," says Negan, trying to inject a modicum of positivity into Carl's day. The three of them are gathered at the breakfast table; Rick is upstairs getting dressed for work.

Carl's placid expression doesn't change. No one should look so glum with a plate of rainbow pancakes in front of them. As though in stark opposition to Carl's mood, Judith crams a huge forkful of pancakes into her face. Rainbow chip icing smears over her mouth, and she uses her fingers to wipe it away.

"I already made plans with Clementine," Carl tells him. "She's just got her dad now, so she knows what it's like."

Of course the kid wouldn't want to share his grief with his sort-of stepfather. Negan nods in agreement. "That's probably a better plan. You two going somewhere?"

Carl makes a face. "Don't be such a dad."

"That's kind of my job now, kid."

"Man, I thought you were cool," says Carl, as though Negan has gravely disappointed him.

Negan offers a light chuckle. "You thought I was cool?"

"For, like, ten seconds. Then you started playing grab-ass with my dad." Carl frowns like the idea of this bothers him immensely.

"Speaking of your dad, Rick would kill me if I didn't at least ask where you're gonna be today."

"That's a little dramatic," Rick chimes in from the top of the staircase, showered and dressed. "But he's right, Carl. Tell me where you're going."

Carl shrugs the shrug of a teenager. "Probably just Clem's house."

"Does her dad know about this?"

"Yeah, of course."

"So when I call her dad this afternoon and ask if you're there, he's gonna know what I'm talking about?"

"Ugh, yes! You don't have to go all cop-mode on me."

Rick chuckles to himself, amused by Carl's indignant response.

"I'll pick up Judy after school," Negan tells Rick.

Rick gives him a pleased, almost surprised smile, like Negan snatched the thought from his head before he could voice it. Even Negan himself takes a bit of pride in how easily they have begun to slip into couples' telepathy.

Around eight, Carl rides his bike home from Clementine's house. Negan's getting Judith ready for bed when Carl appears in her bedroom doorway. He's carrying what looks like a baby book: a soft yellow padded scrapbook.

"Can I put Judy to bed?" Carl says to Negan. "I have something for her."

"Did you write me a story?" Judith asks.

"Kind of." Carl sits in the empty space on her frilly pink bed. "I thought you should know what Mom was like." He moves to open the book, hesitates, and looks at Negan. "You can go."

Negan leaves the room, but he lingers behind the half-way closed door, where Carl can't see that he's eavesdropping.

"It's so pretty," Judith says in an awed voice, and Negan hears the crackle of binding as the book is opened.

"Clem helped me," Carl tells her. "She's good at stuff like this. You've got one of these too. Mom made one for you when you were born. And one for me. Dad has them somewhere. I thought they were kind of lame, but it's a good way to remember someone you love. Who they were…" Carl sounds like he's going to say more, but stops.

"She's pretty," Judith says.

"You look a lot like her. See?"

"Is that me?"

"Yeah, when you were a baby."

Rick comes up the stairs, wearing a puzzled expression when he sees Negan hiding behind Judith's bedroom door. Negan lifts a finger to his lips in a "shh" motion, tipping his head towards the room. Rick joins him there and listens.

"This is Mom and Dad when they were young, before I was born," Carl says to Judith. "Way before you were born. They didn't have cell phones back then, so taking pictures was really special, 'cause you had to go to store and get the pictures developed."

"That's Daddy?" Judith asks.

"Yeah, he looks kind of weird when he shaves."

Negan bites down on a laugh; Rick gives him a loving glare.

Another crackle as Carl turns a page. "This was Clem's idea. Smell it."

Judith says, "Ooh," in that same soft, awed voice.

"That's the perfume Mom wore all the time. It's called Baby Soft or something. I kept the bottle she had."

Negan watches Rick's face. Rick looks a strange mix of sad and proud, as though he too is touched by Carl's gentle gesture.

Negan places a hand on Rick's shoulder, lets it linger there for a moment before he heads downstairs.

Rick finds him in the kitchen a few minutes later.

"How are you holding up?" Negan asks.

For a moment, Rick seems somewhat perplexed by this question. Lori wasn't his mother, but she was his wife and the mother of his children, and there is an acute pain in watching them mourn. "Every year it gets a little easier. It's good to see Carl telling Judith about her. I don't know how much she remembers of Lori."

"Give yourself a pat on the back. You two raised a good kid."

"I'm not out of the woods yet. And you played a part too."

Negan didn't know how much he needed to hear this—that Rick views him as a parent to Carl—until now.

* * *

When Emily's birth and death anniversary rolls around in the middle of May, Negan takes a lead from Carl. Just as Carl told Judith everything she missed out on regarding Lori, Negan sits at Emily's grave and tells her about Lucille, about Rick and Carl and Judith.

There are a few small offerings left on the graves of Negan's loved ones. Most of them are flower bouquets, though there are two plush animals nestled in the grass beside Emily's headstone. They are tangible reminders that Negan's losses are not private, that the deaths of his wife and unborn child were trashy Buzzfeed fodder, that fans have come here to pay their respects. How these fans found the location of the graves is unbeknownst to Negan. There's a part of him that doesn't _want_ to know.

He leaves two tokens of his own: a photo of Lucille taken during the beginning of their relationship, and a copy of _The New World._ The second-to-last track on the album, "All for You," was written for Emily while she was still a growing thing in Lucille's belly, and this is the most personal artifact he can leave behind. Negan lingers there as the colors of the grass and sky mix together, and he cries for the loss of the daughter he never knew, who he never got the chance to know. He cries because, as Rick said, it gets a little easier every year, and he doesn't know what he'll do when the tears no longer come.

* * *

In June, Negan returns to the cemetery, this time for the anniversary of Lucille's death. He lays a bouquet of sunflowers picked from the backyard on her grave. This time, he talks to her, though he knows she's no longer there, even in spirit. But talking to the dead is commonplace here, and it doesn't feel right to simply drop off some flowers and leave. So he stays, and he tells her what she has missed in his life: the new album, the tour, his job hunting monsters, Rick…

"I still love and miss you like hell, but I think I'm gonna make it. You don't have to worry about me," Negan says, watching the sunflower petals sway in the gentle summer breeze. "Sorry I didn't make it last year. We did a fucking great show, if that makes a difference. It's the second disc on the live DVD, it was that good. But what am I telling you for? You know we're awesome." A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "I think you'd like Rick. I know you two got off to a rocky start, but he's a good guy." Negan stops himself before he ends up rambling. "Anyway, I guess I just wanted you to know I'm okay. I owe you a lot. Don't think I've forgotten."

After a moment of silence, he heads home.

* * *

June also brings cause for celebration in the form of Carl's sixteenth birthday. Negan rents out a nearby laser tag for the occasion, which Rick finds somewhat ostentatious. Last year, Rick enlisted Judith's help in baking a cake, and Carl's birthday was a relatively normal day, albeit with presents and well-wishes. And Carl had appreciated that just fine, at least Rick thinks so; Carl didn't ask for a gala thrown in his honor last year, and Rick hasn't heard any special birthday-related requests this year, which leads him to believe all of this is Negan's idea.

Carl has invited practically everyone he knows to the party, as though flaunting his sort-of stepfather's prestige, or maybe he's just trying to impress Clementine; Rick suspects Carl's motives fall somewhere in the middle, since Clementine seems to be enjoying herself, and, if envy were acid, Ron Anderson's glares would reduce Carl to a pile of bones.

Throughout the afternoon, Rick is occasionally congratulated with variations of, "Great party, Rick!" by his friends and neighbors, and he is bewildered that they assume he's the mastermind behind this. Rick already held his idea of an extravagant party last year for Judith's fifth birthday, which took place in the Grimes' backyard with all the usual fanfare of children's birthday parties—which is, to say, very little. Rick does not indulge in recklessly wasteful celebration; Negan, on the other hand, is Jay Gatsby in a leather jacket.

Despite the party's flashy nature, Rick didn't protest when Negan suggested the idea. Negan seemed to treasure the opportunity to perform some grand gesture for Carl, the way he had on Rick's birthday when he sent Shane all the way from Atlanta to Alexandria. So why not let him overindulge? Carl hasn't had a spectacular birthday since he was eight, when Rick and Lori took him to Six Flags Over Georgia for the first time.

Towards the end of the evening, after most of the guests have gone home, Rick finds Negan at the bar.

Negan grins when he sees Rick. "You were built for this laser tag shit. Must be all that police training."

Rick had, indeed, done pretty well in the laser tag chamber. He didn't want to play at first, but Negan goaded him into participation, and Rick ended up enjoying himself. The fact that his team beat Negan's was just a coincidence.

"That might have something to do with it," Rick agrees, taking the empty seat beside Negan. He steals Negan's glass and takes a sip. Watered-down whiskey. "I'm a little scared how you'll top this when Carl turns eighteen."

"Or twenty-one." Negan takes back the glass and finishes off the whiskey.

Rick looks at Negan with appreciation. "Thank you, though. I wouldn't have been able to do something like this for him. Wouldn't have thought of it."

"I'm Negan, and I'll be playing the role of Cool Dad."

Not a role to which Rick has ever aspired. He's seen it go sideways too often. "Good thing I'm here to keep you in line."

"Punish me, Daddy."

Rick makes a noise of disgust. "Stop."

Negan snickers.

"This seems to be a habit for you," Rick says, needing to change the subject. But Negan doesn't give him time to elaborate.

"I'm just bustin' your balls."

"Save that for the bedroom. And that's not what I mean. You go above and beyond for people. A lot. This"—Rick gestures around them—"sending Shane out here for my birthday, all those songs. And we're not even counting the extravagant stuff you did for Lucille, but I remember you sayin' you took her to the Caribbean at one point. And there was that expensive paint set you tried to send to your ex."

"Since when is being a nice fuckin' person a crime?"

"It's not, but generosity can be used to compensate for something."

Negan tips his head back and laughs. "Now, Rick, you _know_ I am not compensating for _shit_."

Rick just gives him The Look, a special expression he has cultivated for moments when Negan is too ridiculous for words. Then his face softens as he says, "You don't have to convince me to love you. I already do. I don't know if Lucille told you this, but you are enough."

This seems to affect Negan, as though some hidden truth is suddenly clear to him. Rick suspects Negan has been convincing people to love him through lavish gifts and gestures for quite a long time, probably since the band hit it big.

"Yeah, she did," Negan says, "but you're not her, and I'm a slow learner."


	17. Chapter 17

_July 2015_

"Put this delicious mess in your mouth," Negan says, setting a pan of brownies in front of Rick. This is not the most suggestive way he could have phrased that request, but Negan certainly made an effort.

They were sitting at the kitchen table, finishing off the last half-bottle of sangria and bitching about the wave of reality television paranormal shows, when something Rick said reminded Negan of the sugar-laden monstrosity waiting in the fridge. So he fetched the pan, and now here they are, sitting across from each other, and Negan seems to be daring Rick to take a bite without falling into a sugar coma.

Rick studies the brownies the way he might admire an abstract, confusing art gallery piece. The top layer of the brownies is a melty mess of hot fudge drizzle and lightly toasted marshmallows. A small square has been cut away for taste-testing purposes. Rick sees the insides are just as gooey as the rest of the dessert.

It's not entirely clear why Negan insists on preparing elaborate desserts for Rick, when Rick isn't a huge fan of sugar in the first place. Since Negan's integration into the Grimes family, he has taken on the responsibility of preparing meals—a duty which he performs with the utmost diligence—so Rick knows he's capable of making real food. But desserts tend to keep better over a span of days than regular food, so maybe it's a matter of practicality over preference.

"You really need to work on your phrasing," Rick says, accepting the proffered fork and spearing himself a piece of the brownies.

"I mean exactly what I say," Negan tells him with a grin. He's leaning forward, hands clasped under his chin as though anticipating a comical reaction from Rick.

If it were anyone else leering at him from across the table, Rick would be concerned for his taste buds, but Negan has never been the type to pull food-related pranks. "Why waste the ingredients?" Negan would say if accused of such a crime, so Rick doesn't worry about getting a mouthful of salt or cayenne pepper when he takes a bite.

The flavors of chocolate, marshmallow, and graham crackers atone for the brownie's unfortunate texture of a thick, gooey paste. Mid-chew, Rick feels like a dog licking peanut butter off the roof of its mouth.

"We could caulk the shower tiles with this," Rick says when he can form words again.

"That's how you get ants."

"And they'd get stuck in it like a glue-trap. Problem solved."

"Quit your bitching and tell me how they taste."

Rick goes in for another bite, a gesture which ought to speak for itself regarding the quality of the brownies. "It's hard to fuck up s'mores, but you found a way. Congratulations." The corner of his mouth upticks into a smirk before he takes a second bite.

Negan affectionately flips him the bird.

"They're fine," Rick finally says. He wouldn't have gone in for a second bite—or, as his fork jabs into the gooey mess, a third—if the dessert was disgusting.

"I know, you're just yankin' my dick," Negan says with a dismissive handwave.

"Mm, maybe later."

"I am fucking overjoyed that I've seen your flirt game improve since we've been together." Instead of procuring his own fork, Negan simply reaches across the table and snatches the utensil from Rick's fingers. Rick frowns at Negan's table manners, or lack thereof, but allows this appropriation of silverware. "How the shit did you even land a woman like Lori?"

"I think she found my lack of charisma appealing. I was, and I quote, 'harmless.'"

Negan snorts a laugh. "You poor motherfucker." He stuffs a bite of brownie into his mouth. The glue-like texture doesn't seem to inhibit his chewing. "That was her polite way of saying you had zero game."

"Let's be fair," says Rick, "you and Lori have two different styles of flirting." Lori would titter a laugh and place a hand on Rick's arm or chest; Negan prefers to go straight for the goods, sticking his hand down the front of Rick's jeans and giving him a grin that seems to say, _there's more where that came from._

"Life's too short for subtlety."

Rick doesn't disagree with that, but every time he's even half as brazen as Negan, he feels like he's standing impossibly close to a blazing fire, testing how close he can get before he burns.

Tonight is one of those rare, quiet nights in their relationship where they don't have a case and are not required to rise early the next morning to prepare the kids for school. Judith is fast asleep, and Carl is shut away in his bedroom playing video games on his laptop or texting on his phone. Since Negan joined Grimes & Associates, they haven't had a lot of opportunities to enjoy moments like this where they can just _be._ After the adrenaline-fueled life-or-death excitement of facing down a vampire or a shapeshifter, or painstakingly digging up a grave for a salt-and-burn, rarely do they have the energy to fuck or even hold a simple conversation with each other.

Rick steals back his fork for another bite. Negan looks pleased and tops off his glass of wine, finishing the bottle.

"Did I tell you Eugene's putting together a remix album?" Negan says.

This is news to Rick, who hasn't heard much about the band's activities. "You did not."

Negan takes another sip and explains: "Our five-year contract's coming to a close in December. We signed on for five albums, and we've put out four so far."

Rick does the math in his head. _Hearts Still Beating_ must have been the first, then _The New World_. But that's only two. Live albums must count toward the total, then.

"So since the rest of us are lazy bastards, Eugene volunteered to remix some of our songs and experiment with a whole bunch of different genres we don't normally get to play around with. I heard one of the songs he's finished, and it is _the shit_. He turned our first big hit into a fucking EDM song. I love it."

Rick thinks that sounds like a pile of shit, but Negan's wearing his characteristic proud-of-himself smile, and it's hard not to be happy for him. "Get ready to hear the 'sell-out' chant."

"We've been hearing that for years," Negan says with a scoff. "And don't worry, I'll make you listen to it when it's finished."

Rick nods in agreement. "You better."

They head upstairs after finishing the wine. Carl's bedroom light is off, judging by the lack of illumination from underneath his closed door. There will be no interruptions tonight. Rick pulls Negan into their shared bedroom by the hem of his faded Tesla t-shirt. Negan goes along, his mouth never ceasing against Rick's own except to break away and pull his t-shirt over his head. The sight of Negan's naked torso electrifies something inside of Rick, and Rick drags him to their bed.

The sex is quick but satisfying. Rick has learned to let their bedroom encounters err more on the quickie side than the lovemaking side, to never assume they'll have the time—or energy—to carefully explore every inch of the other's body. Most nights they expend their energies putting the kids to bed, picking up Judith from the Rhees' or Tara and Rosita's, washing off the dirt and sweat accumulated after a hunt. Last week, Rick and Negan managed fall asleep in the middle of what began as a promising sexual encounter. They'd been making out, hands roaming over hot skin, and then suddenly it was morning, and neither of them had come.

Rick rides Negan hard, bowed forward so Negan can mouth over his chest. Negan's teeth find a nipple, biting down with a so-good-it-hurts pinch, and Rick growls a shaky noise as his hips jerk back. He straightens up, thighs quaking with the effort, and rakes his fingers through the dark fuzz on Negan's chest. Negan skims his hands over Rick's thighs, up his sides, to his elbows before finding his hands. Their fingers interlock, and Rick sees the newly-acquired tattoo of his own Colt Python on the inside of Negan's right forearm. In this moment Rick is overwhelmed by the love Negan has for him, how Negan's body is a map of loved ones who have left their mark in ink.

Negan brings Rick in closer to purr, "God damn, honey, you're so fuckin' tight," at his ear, before rocking his hips off the mattress to shove himself in deeper. Rick yelps, shaking all over. Negan sinks back onto the bed, because he likes to watch Rick fall apart. One look at Negan's flushed cheeks and self-satisified smirk, and Rick's gone.

Later, they lie sprawled on the bed, curled together in a way that feels more intimate and personal than the sex from moments ago. Negan's hands have a disquieting gentleness to them when he's not clutching onto Rick's ass or pulling his hair; his fingers trace the topography of Rick's body, slow and curious, as though it's the first time he's ever seen it.

From its place on the night table, Rick's cell phone rings. Generally, no good news comes after midnight. Negan had texted him late while on tour, but he'd been out of town then. Rick can't think of anyone who might be contacting him so late; his private cell number isn't available to the public, so it can't be a potential client. Curious, Rick reaches out and grabs the phone to take a look.

Carl's name and picture appear on the screen. Rick finds this odd for multiple reasons. One, Carl rarely ever calls him; text messages are Carl's prime method of communication. Second, Carl is asleep in the next bedroom. Or, at least, he's pretending to be asleep. He was probably messing with something on his phone and accidentally dialed Rick. It's easy to imagine a scenario where Carl's lying in bed, holding his phone above his face, then the phone slips out of his hand, and in his haste to grab it his fingers press the wrong button. Hell, Rick's done that a couple times himself. Touchscreens can be finicky creatures, even for someone like Carl who's practically grown up with these devices right out of the womb.

Rick sets his phone back on the night table, shifting closer to Negan. Negan cocks an eyebrow. "Who is it?"

"Carl. He must have dialed me by mistake."

"Or maybe he heard us and wants you to quiet down next time."

Rick gives him a playful nudge in the side.

"What? You're noisy in the sack!" Negan protests. "It gets my dick hard, but that can't be fun for the kid, hearing you begging for my cock."

Rick feels like Negan's exaggerating just a bit. "I don't _beg_."

Negan rolls onto his side, moves so he's curled over Rick. "Want me to go down on you and prove it?"

The offer is tempting, and Negan's warm, solid fingers around Rick's flagging cock make a convincing argument. Rick hums a contented sound, which Negan takes as permission to kiss his way down Rick's torso. Negan's sucking him back to life when Rick's cell phone chirps. This time it's the voicemail sound. Carl must have left a message, or forgotten to cancel the call, both of which strike Rick as incredibly odd. If dialing Rick had been an accident, Carl would have immediately hit the cancel button, and Rick's voicemail wouldn't have kicked in. If Carl chose to leave a message… well, why? Why not text instead? If he wanted to make a point, why not simply leave his room and say whatever he wanted to say through Rick and Negan's bedroom door?

The strangeness of the situation grabs Rick.

Rick nudges Negan away and briefly mourns the hot void of his mouth. "Wait," Rick murmurs. He slides out of bed, steps into the sweatpants he discarded when Negan slid them off his hips.

"What're you doing?"

"Just hold on."

Rick slips out of the bedroom, his footsteps creaking in the hall. He curls a hand around the doorknob of Carl's room, hesitating. What, really, is he doing here? Invading Carl's privacy because the kid butt-dialed him? Maybe. But in his time as a cop and, later, sheriff, Rick has learned to trust his intuition. If something feels off, it probably is.

Rick turns the knob and steps inside. "Carl?" he whispers, searching for his son's form in the darkness. "You alright?"

Rick scans the room. The Batman blanket pinned across the window limits the amount of light that seeps in, but there's enough illumination for Rick to see a lumpy form in the bed. Carl must have fallen asleep while texting or playing games, and the heat and movement of his fingers on the screen somehow called up Rick's number.

Satisfied, Rick searches for the phone so he can remove it from Carl's grasp and prevent any future misdials. Carl would be mortified if he accidentally dialed, say, Clementine, and left a voicemail of himself snoring for five minutes.

There are no phone-size shapes on either side of the bed, so Carl hasn't dropped it on the floor. Rick moves closer to the bed. Carl has the blankets pulled up over his head, as though cocooning himself inside of them. Rather than lift the comforter and risk waking Carl, Rick eases his hand inside the blankets, searching for the device. His fingers push against something plush, something with too much give to be human. It's soft and squishy, almost like…

A pillow.

Rick tears off the comforter, and his windpipe closes. The lumpy form in the bed is not Carl, but a conglomeration of pillows and a rolled-up fleece blanket meant to resemble a sleeping human when viewed in the dark and from the doorway.

The oldest goddamn trick in the book. And Rick fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

Panic ricochets in every cell, overloading his senses.

Over the years, Rick has imagined a plethora of scenarios where he discovers Carl missing or, God forbid, dead. A fatal bicycle accident. A car crash on the way to school. Carl being snatched by a predator as he walks to Judith's kindergarten class. A news report about a shooting at Carl's high school. Rick has thought through all the possibilities, imagined his reactions to each. He likes to believe he would stay level-headed, undergo a transformation into a no-nonsense warrior who would lead the search for his missing boy, the way he'd done when he discovered Lori was missing.

Finding his dead wife had destroyed him, but Rick managed to put himself back together. Losing his child, his own flesh and blood… How could he ever come back from that? There are some blows you just don't get up from.

Carl is gone. He could be anywhere. Anything could have happened.

The voicemail.

Oh fuck. Carl was trying to contact him. Whatever teenage shenanigans Carl got up to went wrong somehow, and he made a desperate call for his father's help. Rick doesn't know if he can listen to that message, if Carl's final moments are captured on that recording. He can't do it.

But he has to. Maybe Carl left him a clue. Rick needs to listen to that voicemail.

He bolts into his bedroom, snatching the phone off the night table.

"What the fuck?" Negan wonders. "What's wrong?"

"Carl snuck out," Rick manages to say over the clamor of the panic bell in his head. He opens the voicemail, presses 'speaker' with a trembling finger.

Carl's voice emits from the phone, along with a crackling, crunching noise. His voice is a frantic gush of words. "Dad, I need your help! We're in the woods! There's a bird-monster thing coming after us! I have a knife but I don't know—" Carl screams, then there's an inhuman shriek, followed by teenagers shouting over each other: "Oh, shit!" "Oh, fuck!" "Shitshitshitshit—" "Run!"

More crackling noises and angry, animalistic shrieks.

A male voice that isn't Carl's says, "Where are the bikes?"

"I don't know!" Carl wails.

"We're fucking lost?"

"No, dude, I just don't know where we are!" Carl shouts, then says into the phone, "Dad, Negan, you gotta help! This thing is gonna kill us!"

Then, mercifully, the call ends.

Rick tries to lick his lips but finds his mouth has gone dry. All of his crisis training and imagined courage in the face of fear fall away, leaving him with only the isolating terror of impending loss.

Rick registers Negan's voice coming from beside him. "The woods? What fucking woods? Can you find out where he is?"

This question snaps Rick into investigative mode, giving him a clear-cut task. "I—I think so."

The first Christmas they spent in this house, Rick took the plunge and bought Carl a smartphone, with the stipulation that Carl keep his location readily available on a tracking app. Rick promised he wouldn't use the app to spy on Carl, only to locate him in case of an emergency. After what happened with Lori—and, of course, the gift of the iPhone itself—Carl agreed.

The app should still be on Carl's phone, unless he deleted it or turned off access to his location before he sneaked out of the house. Rick hopes Carl did the smart thing and kept his location accessible. He pulls up the app and tries to calm his erratic heartbeat during the handful of seconds it takes to locate Carl's phone.

The green dot representing Carl's location appears on-screen, pinpointing his location to a small cluster of parks and nature reserves about fifteen minutes away. "Here," Rick says, handing the phone to Negan, hoping he will be able to make sense of this.

"Good, he's not too far. I can get us there in ten." Negan gives Rick the phone and digs out jeans and a t-shirt from the bureau drawers.

"Wait, what about Judy? Someone has to—We can't just leave her." It's not like they can take a five-year-old with them on a dangerous trip to kill a monster.

"Tara and Rosita have a key. Just tell 'em to keep an eye on her 'til we get back." Negan's dressed in record time, and Rick finds himself fumbling with his own clothes, fear rendering his appendages useless. He cannot remember ever being so afraid.

It had been different facing down the wendigo in that cave. Although Rick was presented with something beyond his understanding, he had back-up. He had weapons. He had no idea the creature was responsible for Lori's death. The understanding Rick has now of all the horrible things that could be happening to Carl right this moment, the lack of knowledge about what kind of creature is hunting his son in the woods…

They're out the door and on the road in record time. Rick hammers out a quick text to Tara while Negan drives. Tara doesn't usually go to bed until around 2 or 3 a.m., so Rick doesn't feel too bad about requiring her help so late. After he sends the text, he plays Carl's voicemail message at Negan's request.

"That noise the thing makes," Negan says when the message is over. "Like it's in pain. You think Carl stabbed it? He said he had a knife."

That possibility crossed Rick's mind too. "And Carl screamed like he was startled. Maybe the thing jumped out at him. If he had the knife in his hand, he could've lashed out, cut it."

The night flies by in swatches of neon signs and traffic lights.

"What do you think it is?" asks Negan, but Rick's already Googling the bird-monster. The first few results yield nothing helpful, then Rick hits a goldmine of information.

"A Nachtkrapp. A giant, nocturnal raven-like bird," Rick reads off the screen. "If it is seen by children, it will abduct them into its nest and and devour them, first ripping off their limbs and then picking out their heart." Rick tries not to think about that, but the visceral, horrifying image manifests in his mind's eye anyway, and he shudders away from it.

Negan, as though knowing where Rick's head is, sets him back on track. "Blah, blah, blah. How do we kill it?"

Rick scans the text for the Nachtkrapp's weakness or vulnerability. "It doesn't say."

"Well, we've got a whole arsenal in the trunk. We'll figure somethin' out."

They head toward the green dot signifying Carl's location on the map. The park is overgrown with trees, the perfect place for rumors of mysterious creatures to thrive. There is an empty parking lot with a sprawl of woods stretching out beyond the pavement. Four bicycles are stored in a nearby bike rack. Rick recognizes Carl's bike among them; the others must belong to Carl's friends.

"They went in on foot," Rick says as the car pulls into the lot. He glances down at the phone's screen, at the dot on the map that he hopes will lead him to his son. "You think we can still track him on this?"

"Better than goin' in blind."

They pick a range of weapons from the trunk. Negan chooses his signature barbed-wire baseball bat, while Rick goes for the Colt Python with silver bullets. Depending on how deep Carl and his friends wandered into the woods, a gunshot might stay within the confines of the trees. And if not, the somewhat isolated nature of the park itself should keep the sound somewhat subdued. Contrary to the name, a silencer instead _suppresses_ the sound of a gunshot. Even so, noise is the last thing on Rick's mind as he loads the bullets into the chamber.

Negan pockets a small plastic bottle of holy water, just in case. He turns on his phone's flashlight and shuts the trunk. "Let's go."

Past the parking lot, there's a one-lane paved walkway leading to a small playground on the right and a picnic area on the left. Straight ahead is the thicket of trees. The foreboding, unexplored woods. Rick leads the way, pushing through branches, following the compass of Carl's location on the phone. Negan shines his flashlight to brighten the way; the canopy of trees blocks out most of the moonlight. Though the claustrophobic woods feel as though Rick is miles from civilization, he knows the suburban streets are merely a few hundred yards away. The smell of leaves and pinecones fills the air.

"Carl?" Rick whisper-shouts, keeping his voice down, though if this creature has a decent sense of hearing it already knows they're here.

Rick hears a rustle in the trees.

Negan hears it too. He spins the flashlight in the direction of the noise. The beam of light illuminates a human figure who stands frozen like a deer in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler. Rick recognizes the startled kid as one of Carl's friends, and the son of their next-door neighbors: Ron Anderson.

"Where's Carl?" asks Rick, stepping towards Ron. Leaves and pebbles crunch under his boots.

"I—I don't know!" Ron sputters. "We got separated."

Rick doesn't entirely buy that explanation, but he lets it go for now. "Stay behind me."

Ron falls into line behind the two of them, and Rick asks which way he came from.

Ron points ahead of them. "That way, I think."

"Who else was with you?"

"Carl, Clementine, and Enid."

"Did you all split up?"

"We just started running. I thought they were following me," Ron says. "But then when I looked back, they were gone." There's a weird edge to his voice, an edge Rick recognizes from his time questioning guilty people with something to hide. Is Ron lying? It certainly feels that way, like a tingle along Rick's spine, and Rick has learned not to ignore his bad omen Spidey-sense.

The air feels suddenly still as the three of them head deeper into the woods. Rick keeps one hand around his Colt, the other holding his phone for navigation purposes. They're closing in on Carl's location, and Rick quickens his steps.

"Carl!" he says, louder this time.

A familiar voice whispers, "Dad! Over here!"

Rick's heartbeat picks up speed. Negan's light scans over the pitch-black woods, searching for Carl. Rick doesn't see him.

"Carl!"

"In the tree!" Carl answers back.

Which fucking tree, Rick wonders. There are countless trees all around, but he heads in the direction of Carl's voice. Negan follows him, and the flashlight beam hits the trunk of a large tree, opened wide enough to fit two teenagers inside: Carl and Clementine. Their faces are weary and drained of color.

Rick rushes in and helps them out of the tree trunk. Clementine squeezes out first, then Carl. Carl's got a hand pressed against his middle, his fingers and shirt smeared with dark red. Rick's stomach doesn't so much as drop as melt away, disintegrating into nothingness.

"What happened?" Rick hears the hysteria in his voice, but he doesn't care.

"It's just a scratch." Carl peels up his shirt to reveal three long gashes over his stomach and down his side.

"Hell of a scratch," Negan says with a shaky exhale.

The cuts weep blood, but upon closer inspection with the flashlight they appear shallow, or, at least, not indicative of ruptured organs. Rick sighs, relieved yet still so, so afraid.

"The giant crow made a dive for Enid, but Carl pushed her out of the way," Clementine explains.

Rick wants to commend his son for the noble sacrifice, wring Carl's neck for sneaking out and almost getting himself killed, and hug him tightly, all at once. Rather than deal with this clusterfuck of conflicting emotions, Rick asks, "Where's Enid?"

"I'm over here!" comes a timid female voice, about a few yards away.

Negan turns, shines the light for Enid to find her way. "C'mon out. The giant bird extermination crew is here."

Enid stumbles out from the shelter of a few trees. She brushes a leaf out of her hair, panicking for a moment until she realizes it's not a spider or a giant bug.

"He left us," Clementine says, her voice steel as she points an accusing finger at Ron, who's currently cowering behind the adults.

"I was gonna get help!" Ron protests.

Clementine glares at him. "You have your phone, idiot. You could've called someone. You just ran away like a coward."

So Rick's suspicions had been right.

As Enid emerges from the trees, a screeching caw sounds to the left of them. The kids scramble for their hiding spots, and a large dark blur whooshes down from the sky. Rick draws his gun and fires a shot. The bullet hits the Nachtkrapp in its left wing, leaving a tiny hole of an exit wound. An unholy squall escapes the creature's ragged beak as it loses altitude, flapping madly with its one good wing. The winged beast drops to the ground, unable to sustain flight. Negan takes this as his cue, gripping the baseball bat in both hands as he strolls up to the bird-beast. He takes a swing, like he's Babe Ruth in the bottom of the ninth, and wallops the Nachtkrapp across its face.

The monster screeches, and Negan, in a blind rage, goes in for another hit.

 _Crack!_

That one breaks open the creature's skull like a egg. Dark blood sprays and splatters from its head.

"C'mon, you fucking animal!" Negan yells as he pummels the creature to death. "Is that all you got? What a goddamn shame! I'm just getting started!"

"Oh my God," Enid says, over and over, like she can't believe what she's seeing. Rick's a little stunned himself.

Viscera and brain matter sling off the barrel of Negan's bat. After the fifth swing, it's clear the Nachtkrapp is dead, beaten into a twitchy, pulpy mess. But Negan doesn't stop bringing the bat down with purpose and rage. "Piece of shit!"

 _Squish. Smack. Squelch._

Negan is lost in that dark and stinking chasm where anger surpasses rage and becomes homicide; Rick is witnessing something never intended for his eyes.

"Negan," Rick says firmly. "It's dead."

The sound of Rick's voice draws Negan back from the edge. He drops the barrel of the bat onto the blood-soaked dirt. Caught in the beam of Rick's flashlight, the Nachtkrapp's head (or what's left of it) resembles strawberry jam. Negan exhales a long sigh, and it's as though that breath extinguishes his rage all at once. He drops to one knee, steadying himself with the bat. Rick decides to give Negan a moment to compose himself.

He turns to his son's friends and says, in his sternest voice, "The three of you, call your parents. Right now."


	18. Chapter 18

After making sure Ron, Clementine, and Enid are safely carted away by their worried, sleepy-eyed parents, Rick and Negan take Carl home. Rick wanted to leave the bike, because the fucking thing had given Carl the resources to end up at a park fifteen minutes away from their house, had enabled him to endanger his life, but Carl begged them to take it with them. Rick thought it over and, realizing he'd have to replace it eventually if he left it on the rack, squeezed the bike into the trunk.

For most of the drive home, neither Rick or Negan wants to break the terse film of silence encasing the inside of the car. Carl sits in the back seat with his arms folded over his chest, pointedly staring out the window. He doesn't bother with the usual excuses or justifications; he knows he's stepped in it this time, and pleas for clemency will not be heeded.

Negan finally breaks the silence as Rick's turning onto their street. "Kid, what the fuck were you thinking?"

Normally, Rick would remind Negan to clean up his language around the kids, but he can grant that profanity is appropriate for this situation.

Carl makes a scoff of indignation. "I had a knife," he says, like a three-inch blade would ever be enough to dispatch anything bigger than a trout. "And it's not like I was by myself."

"Oh, right, you had three unarmed teenagers with you. Seal Team Six."

"Clementine had a pocket knife," Carl protests. "And I was the one who actually cut the thing!"

"You're lucky that giant asshole bird didn't eat you alive," says Negan, and Rick doesn't entirely disagree with that position. "Did you have a back-up plan besides us?"

Carl makes a grumbly noise, which probably means no.

"You know you are super fucking grounded, right?"

"I know."

"And you still haven't explained why you thought sneaking out in the middle of the night to hunt a bird-creature in the woods was a good idea."

"You guys do it!" Carl blurts out, and there it is. Since the start of his paranormal career, Rick wondered when the job would come back to bite him in regards to Carl.

He parks the car in their driveway and exhales a beleaguered sigh.

"We are trained professionals, kid," Negan says. "And before you get smart with me, your dad used to be a cop. He's got enough training for both of us. You, on the other hand, are a scrawny teenager with a pocket knife the size of a gnome's dick. We've got the edge in life experience here."

Carl says, "Then train me! I read Dad's journal. I know most of it already."

"But you didn't know not to endanger three of your friends?" Rick interjects. "You had no idea what you were up against." Just like Lori, Carl had been blissfully ignorant of what's out there. "And you knew better. You know those things are real." He shakes his head. "You're super fucking grounded," Rick says in agreement with Negan, and he gets out of the car.

* * *

Later, after the house is still and quiet again, Rick tends to Carl's wounds under the harsh glare of the fluorescents in the master bathroom. Carl jerks away with a hiss when Rick presses a hydrogen peroxide-soaked cloth to the slashes on his midsection. The wounds fizz and bubble, and Carl shuts his teeth against a sound of pain.

"Do I have to go to the hospital?" Carl asks, like the trip would be some great disservice.

Rick flashes back to when he'd come home torn up after a hunt, a deep slice on his right palm. Negan had drawn a bath for him and nagged him about going to the emergency room; Rick wasn't thrilled about it, but he went, because he knew he'd lose the hand if he didn't.

Underneath the lights, Rick can see the cuts on Carl's abdomen are shallow enough for an at-home patch job. If those claws had gone deeper… If Carl had been just one half-second slower, maybe they'd be in the emergency room now, and Rick would have to explain that an enormous bird-monster disemboweled his son.

"No," Rick says, "I can do it here."

An edge of suspicion creeps into Carl's voice, as if he knows something horrible is coming. "Do what?"

Rick digs through the cabinet and finds the sewing kit. Carl loses a bit of color.

"Oh my God, are you serious? I changed my mind. Let's go to the hospital."

Rick threads the needle. "They'd do the same thing. You need stitches."

"Yeah, but they numb you first!"

Negan appears in the bathroom doorway. "Maybe it's time we give the kid his first drink."

"And a leather belt to bite on."

"Ah, the old country medicine starter pack," Negan says with a chuckle.

"So you guys are gonna ground me for the rest of my life, _and_ stitch up three huge claw marks without anaesthetic? I thought cruel and unusual punishment was illegal." Carl's words are harsh, but his voice trembles like a fault line.

"Oh, don't cry, you big wuss. We've got anaesthetic." Negan enters the room and takes the numbing spray out of the cabinet. Rick accepts the bottle, sprays some numbing agent onto a cotton ball and wipes it across the seams of Carl's skin where the stitches will go. Carl jumps a bit at the sensation.

"So how about that drink?" Carl says with a half-assed smile.

Rick shoots a glance at Negan. He doesn't much approve of giving Carl his first drink at sixteen years old during a back-alley surgery and, knowing Negan, it would be hard liquor, not watered-down beer.

"Don't get ahead of yourself."

When Carl is sufficiently numbed, Rick begins stitching. Carl makes a high-pitched whining noise, watching the needle and thread pierce his skin.

"You're gonna watch?" Negan laughs. "You are a bad-ass."

"Don't encourage him," Rick mutters. Negan's leaning against the doorframe just as cool as a summer cucumber while Rick has to sew up his own son like Carl is one of Judith's stuffed toys. Rick doesn't know whether to resent Negan for not volunteering to do this, or Carl for making him do it.

No, Rick is angry at himself. His career has put his son's life in jeopardy, and he can't forgive himself for that. He thinks, _this hurts me more than it hurts you,_ then shakes it off. Rick swore he would never become his father, yet here he is, repeating the same cliches he hated in his youth.

"It's gross, but I can't look away," Carl says. And he doesn't. He watches with curious fascination as Rick sews him up. He makes tiny grunts of pain when the thread snags and Rick has to tug a bit to pull it through.

"Well, God damn. Color me impressed," says Negan. "I bet Clementine would be, too."

Carl's face gains a bit of color. "Shut up."

Rick supposes they're all ignoring the fact that Carl's recklessness tonight could have gotten Clementine killed. "Is that what this was about? You trying to impress her?"

"No," Carl protests, but the immediacy of his answer and the flush in his cheeks says otherwise. "That's stupid."

"And teenagers do stupid things," Negan says. "Jesus, I did all kinds of dumb shit when I was your age. And when I wasn't. It's a miracle I'm even alive."

Rick isn't going to acknowledge that right now. He jabs the needle in, pulls it through. "Carl, you don't have to risk your life to get that girl to like you. She already does. And I'm not saying that because I'm your dad. I'm saying that because I have eyes."

"You think she's gonna go for that weasel-faced Ron?" Negan laughs.

"No, I know. I mean, Ron's already going out with Enid, but…" Carl pauses, considering. "How did you guys know you liked each other for real?"

"Keep it G-rated," Rick warns Negan without looking up from his stitching.

Negan snorts like Rick is being unreasonable. "Sorry, your dad won't let me answer that."

"I wish Mom was here," Carl sighs, sounding defeated, and Rick's heart sinks. As if sensing the coldness in his words, Carl adds: "Just for, y'know, a girl's perspective."

"You could ask Tara or Rosita," Negan points out. "I think they'd know a hell of a lot about the subject, seeing as they're chicks who dig chicks."

Carl's expression tells Rick he never considered that before. "I guess…"

"To answer your question," Rick tells him, "I knew it was real when I saw how Negan got along with you and your sister." He could go on about how Negan seemed like the missing piece in their family, but Rick chooses not to gush.

"That's real fuckin' sweet, Rick," Negan says, grinning. "Almost like you _love_ me or somethin'."

"Don't get all mushy," Carl whines. "I'm being punished enough."

* * *

It's around three a.m. once Carl has been stitched up and sent to his room. Rick's entire body screams in fatigue, but he can't sleep. Neither can Negan, who comes back into the bedroom after checking on Judith for what seems like the thousandth time tonight.

"Well, at least she's not liable to sneak out any time soon," Negan says, climbing into bed alongside Rick.

Rick shudders to think of the parenting journey ahead of him. "Is this on me?" he asks, addressing the question that's been nagging him since Carl poked at it in the car. "Is this my fault?"

"He wants to be like you. That's a pretty high compliment. And he's a teenager, who up until now has kept his nose clean. So he was due for a shit decision."

Rick is quiet for a moment, not entirely convinced.

Negan shifts onto his side. "I can guaran-damn-tee you this would have happened even if we were tax accountants or CEOs or what the fuck ever. A kid hears about some monster in the woods, he's gonna check it out. Tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing at his age."

Rick can't tell Negan that, because he knows he would have made the same decision Carl did. Curiosity and teenage fearlessness would have nudged him toward that black hole of the unknown.

"If you had stayed a cop," Negan says, "I bet he'd still have gone off trying to prove himself. Only then he might've got his ticket punched early. Monsters have to follow the rules, but people are nuts."

Rick doesn't let himself think about that, but he mulls over Negan's words. "I don't want him to do what we do, because it's dangerous. If that's what he's set on, fine, I guess I can make peace with that. But I don't want to start training him when he's reckless like this."

"Alright, but you're cool with him learning to drive while he's reckless?"

Rick has been supportive of Carl getting a learner's permit, yet the frequency and commonality of driving in everyday life has given him somewhat of a blind spot for how dangerous driving can actually be. He remembers the gruesome videos he watched in health class about the dangers of drunk driving. The visceral, gory images of smashed bodies and vehicles gave him nightmares for weeks.

Rick huffs. He has no argument that doesn't make him sound like a hypocrite.

"Just sleep on it," Negan says, settling into the pillows. Within minutes, his soft snores fill the room.

Rick lies beside him and wonders what Lori would say if she were alive.


	19. Chapter 19

_August 2015_

It's Judith's sixth birthday, and Negan is drunk at the Chuck E. Cheese.

Rick knows this because he is intimately familiar with drunk Negan. The listless curve of his mouth. His lazy hooded eyes. His arm draped across the back of Rick's chair. But mostly it's the sentimentality.

"One hell of a family we got ourselves here, Rick. I might say I'm the luckiest man alive."

Rick can't resist the opportunity to be a smartass. "You did. You just said that."

Negan scowls and pilfers a slice of pizza from the middle of the table. "Don't fuck with me when I'm being sappy."

Celebrating Judith's birthday along with Rick and Negan are Maggie and Glenn Rhee, who've brought three-year-old Hershel along. The children, of course, aren't hanging around the table with the grown-ups; they're off playing in the ball pit or coaxing tickets out of game machines.

Carl jogs up to Rick, looking breathless. "Dad, I need more tokens."

Carl is just about the perfect age to find his sister's birthday party "totally super lame" and "for babies," but seeing as he's still grounded over last month's incident with the Nachtkrapp, this is one of few opportunities he has to see his friends outside of school.

Rick digs through his jeans' pockets, but Negan's already handing Carl a ten-dollar bill. "I'm your dad, too," Negan says smugly. "Have fun."

Carl smiles somewhat crookedly. "Thanks." Then he's off, retreating into the sea of flashing games and sugar-addled kids.

"You guys should come with us," Maggie says; she'd been telling them about her and Glenn's upcoming vacation to Virginia Beach. "We got a hotel room right on the oceanfront. It's gorgeous. The pool is to die for, and, oh my God, the view! I'm sure Glenn could get you a good rate." Glenn's job at the manager of a nearby Hilton means he has connections in the world of travel lodging—and an employee discount.

"That's real generous of you," Rick says, and he's about to politely decline the offer before Negan steps in.

"A vacation sounds pretty damn relaxing right now," Negan says amongst the cacophany of squealing children. He looks at Rick and asks, "How long's it been?"

Either Negan is being cheeky or his memory is failing. Rick and Negan have never vacationed together. The idea certainly has appeal, and Rick doesn't have much reason to decline: school hasn't started yet, and they're not exactly hurting for money. Rick could put work on hold for a week or so.

"Alright," Rick says to Glenn and Maggie, "mark us down as interested."

Maggie's smile lights up her face. "That's great! I'm so excited!"

"What about the kids?" Rick wonders.

"Rosita and Tara said they'd watch Hershel for us. I don't think they'd mind if you wanted to include Judy."

"And Carl?" Rick doesn't have any relatives here to leave the kid with, and Negan's parents are either dead or moved away, so the logistics of things like this are somewhat of a headache, which is probably part of why they haven't had a vacation yet. "He's still grounded. We'd have to take him with us."

Negan scoffs. "Some vacation."

Rick blushes.

"I could get you guys a suite, so Carl would have his own smaller room," Glenn suggests, trying to be helpful, but it just makes Rick blush harder, because Glenn is making arrangements for the ease of Rick and Negan's sex life.

Rick's about to answer when his work phone rings, buzzing incessantly in his pocket. At around three in the afternoon, Rick figures it's not a drunken misdial. Since school is out, the caller can't be one of Carl or Judith's teachers. Rick blocks all telemarketers after realizing it's a recording, so whoever's calling might be a potential client.

Rick excuses himself from the table and ducks out to the front entrance to answer the call. "Grimes & Associates. This is Rick."

A woman's voice answers. "Hi, Rick, my name is Carol Peletier. My daughter Sophia went missing yesterday, and I was hoping you could help me." She sounds like a woman on the brink, holding herself together for the duration of the call.

Rick wonders if Carol called him for his expertise in unusual cases, or if she just wants another set of eyes looking for her daughter. Not that he could blame her for the latter. "I assume you've contacted the police."

Carol scoffs, but it sounds like a sigh. "The police can't get involved. It's not their jurisdiction, and apparently it's not a criminal investigation."

"Where did your daughter go missing?"

"Shenandoah National Park."

"The park rangers didn't find her?" A stupid question—she wouldn't be calling if they had.

"I don't understand it," Carol says, mostly to herself. "She couldn't have gotten that far. And if she got lost and was hiding somewhere, all these people calling her name would have brought her out."

Rick leans against the side of the building, shielding his eyes against the midday sun as he stares into the distance. "Pardon me for asking, but what makes this a case for me?"

"They called in the National Guard," Carol says. "My husband said that only happens if it's a matter of national security. What would a missing twelve-year-old girl have to do with that?"

Curious.

"And the scent dogs can't find anything. It's like she just disappeared," Carol says. "One minute she was on the trail with us, and the next…"

Rick rubs his stubbled chin. One more case before his vacation. Negan wouldn't mind. And if Negan doesn't want to help investigate, he can expend his pent-up restlessness by taking care of the kids.

"Alright, how 'bout I meet with you and your husband, and we'll talk about what happened to your daughter? Is later today good for you?"

Carol chuckles a dark sound. "Our schedule's pretty much open right now, Rick."

Point taken.

They set up a meeting place and time before hanging up. For a moment, Rick lingers in the shade underneath the purple awning of the Chuck E. Cheese. Then he heads back inside.

Judith has returned to the table for a brief snack break, messily chewing pizza and guzzling lemonade. Maggie is holding Hershel in her lap and talking to him in a soft voice. Negan's expression brightens when he sees Rick, like an eager puppy overjoyed at his master's return.

"We got a case?" Negan asks, excitement gleaming in his eyes. That gleam scares Rick sometimes.

"It's your lucky day," Rick says. "A missing girl. I'm meeting with the parents at five. You want to come?"

"C'mon, Rick, you know I always come for you."

Rick's taking that as a yes.

* * *

Carol Peletier and her husband Ezekiel sit in the sunlit office of Grimes & Associates. Both Carol and Ezekiel look weary, the epitome of distressed parents fearing they may never see their child again.

"There's not really much to tell you beyond what I said over the phone," Carol says to Rick. She's a bit older than Rick imagined—maybe late forties to mid-fifties—with short greying hair and light blue eyes. "I know that must be frustrating for you."

"Tell me everything you remember."

Carol nods, her hands twisting the strap of her handbag in her lap. "We were hiking on one of the trails. The three of us. We never let Sophia out of our sight."

Ezekiel speaks up; he has dark dreadlocks frosted over with grey, though the smoothness of his face makes him look somewhat younger than Carol. "The trail was almost impossible not to follow." He doesn't sound angry at his daughter for vanishing, more perplexed how it was even possible. "Sophia is old enough to know not to wander off by herself."

Carol nods. "And she wouldn't have. She's very shy. Always has been."

"What happened when she disappeared?" Rick asks, trying to pull them back on track.

"Sophia was walking in front of us on the trail," Carol says. "Ezekiel and I turned around because we thought we heard someone coming up on the path behind us." Her eyes brim with tears. "In just those few seconds…"

Ezekiel reaches over and places a hand over Carol's own. "It's not your fault," he murmurs, and she nods like they've had this conversation before.

Carol wipes her eyes with her free hand. "When we turned around, Sophia was gone. We searched for her, called her name, but… nothing. So we went for help."

"The park rangers called in the National Guard," Ezekiel says with concern. "Doesn't that seem strange to you?"

Negan shrugs. "Always ready, always there."

"A missing child isn't a matter of national security," Ezekiel says. "Something about this feels wrong."

"Don't you think if"—Carol's breath hitches in her throat, but she composes herself—"God forbid, if someone abducted Sophia, that the scent dogs would find a trail? Either from her or her abductor? But they didn't find anything. It was like she just vanished right off the path."

Negan rubs his scruffy chin as though intrigued. If Rick's honest, this one's got his hackles up, too. Back in Georgia, he investigated plenty of missing children cases. All of them fell into one of three categories: runaway teenagers, a divorced parent kidnaps their child from the other, or the child was taken by a dangerous person intent on doing harm. Even in the most dire situations, the National Guard never showed up. And even in the most baffling disappearances, the dogs could pick up a scent that gave some clue into what happened. Abductions tend to leave traces, however faint.

"So you think something beyond explanation happened here?" Rick wonders.

"That, or the parks service is covering something up," Ezekiel adds.

"Or both," Negan adds with another shrug. He's still a little drunk from earlier. "Maybe they know what happened and want to keep that shit under wraps."

"I don't care what's going on," Carol says. "I just want my daughter back. Can you do that? Can you find Sophia?"

There are no promises in this line of work. Rick has chased down a bevy of supernatural creatures with varying results. Sometimes he's managed to find the thing and put a silver bullet between its eyes. Sometimes he's not so lucky, and his search turns up with more questions than answers. But Rick will always try, because he would have wanted someone to do the same for him when he needed it.

"We'll do our best," Rick tells the couple.


	20. Chapter 20

That evening, Negan cooks dinner while Rick consults his journal. Various papers stick out from the edges, loose-leaf pages folded and crammed into any available space. Rick's sitting at the dining table with his journal open and his iPad at the ready, like an eager student on the first day of college. Judith and Carl are on the living room couch watching cartoons while Negan commandeers the kitchen. The smell of spices fills the air, and on a normal evening Rick wouldn't be able to tear his gaze away from Negan working over the stove, but the case has gripped his attention.

"A lot of people have disappeared from national parks over the years," Rick tells Negan, reading off his iPad. "All over the country."

"If I can't talk about ganking demons at the dinner table, you can't talk about cases," Negan reminds him.

Rick remembers that conversation and feels unfairly slighted. "You were going into pretty graphic detail. And this is worth discussing. No one knows why all these people are disappearing. Like Carol said: they just vanish."

"Alright, it's weird. I'll give you that. What makes this an 'us' thing?"

Rick scans through the page he's reading. "'The missing are found in areas that seem difficult, if not impossible, to reach on foot, or in the time that has lapsed. Children as young as two to three years old have gone missing only to be found at high elevations, such as mountains, cliffs, or trees. Shoes tend to go missing, and the people found in strange places have no signs of wear or dirt on their socks or soles of their feet. If the missing person is found alive, they usually have memory loss. If the missing person is found deceased, the cause of death is almost never determined.'"

"Sounds like our kind of shit," Negan agrees. "Any calling cards?"

Rick hasn't noticed any identifying behaviors of creatures they've encountered in the past, or even of ones he's read about. "Not that I know of."

"So… what if it's Bigfoot? Explains the missing shoes. Sasquatch just wants some Nikes."

Rick remembers watching one of those fake reality shows with the redneck hunter duo searching for Bigfoot. He doesn't have much information on Bigfoot, since most of his work centers around ghosts and predatory cryptids. Maybe he should give them a call, ask for advice. Hunter to hunter.

"That doesn't explain the other stuff," Rick says. "As far as we know, Bigfoot don't go after people. They keep to themselves."

"I'll have you know the plural is Bigfeet, you heathen."

"Pretty sure you're wrong, but okay."

During dinner, Rick regrets making a "no electronics at the table" rule. All he wants to do right now is research these mysterious disappearances and try to find a lead. But he wouldn't be setting a good example for the kids if he broke his own rule, so he pushes back his curiosity. Patience doesn't come easily; Sophia is missing, lost and alone—or worse—in the woods, and although Search and Rescue should still be on the case, Rick doesn't have much faith that they'll find her. Not after the dogs couldn't find a scent. And then there's the peculiar involvement of the National Guard…

It takes an excruciatingly long time for Rick to get back to researching, even after Negan volunteers to clean up the kitchen and get Judith ready for bed. Rick takes his journal and iPad upstairs. The information he finds only breeds more confusion. There is no consistent victim profile; the vanished fall into every imaginable demographic. Children who are found tell bizarre stories about the circumstances of their disappearance. Missing people are located in areas that have been searched numerous times over a period of days. Perhaps most unusual is the absence of tracks.

 _They just vanish._

Searching deeper, Rick discovers a number of these unusual disappearances took place near boulder fields. Granite can hold an electromagnetic charge when crushed or subjected to high pressure. It's possible the rocks could contain enough of a charge to induce visual or cognitive effects in the brain. High EMF. A calling card of the paranormal. He jots down notes and shuts his eyes for a bit, trying to dull the throb from staring so long at the screen.

Rick dozes until Negan enters the room. "Working hard or hardly working?" Negan says, and Rick snaps awake.

"Just resting my eyes."

"Okay, grandpa." Negan sits beside him and pries the iPad out of Rick's hands. "My turn."

Rick heads into the shower. While the hot water rushes over him, he thinks about everything he has learned today. It seems unthinkable that he should put off the task of finding Sophia until the morning, perhaps even the afternoon. In a missing persons case—especially that of a child—the first forty-eight hours are crucial to locating that person alive. According to Carol, Sophia went missing yesterday. They're running out of time, and Rick feels an itch to drag Negan out to Shenandoah National Park and look for her. They'd done the same for Carl with zero hesitation.

And it doesn't help that the circumstances of Sophia's disappearance are an odd mirror of Lori's: being snatched off the trail, vanishing without a trace, disappearing in a park…

"It could be faeries," Negan says with amusement when Rick gets out of the shower. "People disappear near boulder fields, berry bushes, bodies of water. All places where fae are supposed to live. Maybe they're getting pulled into the fairy realm or some shit."

Rick digs a change of clothes out of the dresser. "I thought they only take first-born sons. But you might be on to something. The lack of tracks, the fact that most of these people just vanish… sounds like they slip into an alternate dimension."

"Or something pulls them into one. Seems like there's an intelligence here."

Rick can't agree or disagree with that. He gives a noncommittal nod and gets dressed. "I don't like just sitting around. I want to go look for her."

"Even though we've got no idea what the fuck is going on?" says Negan.

"We did it for Carl."

"He gave us a lead. And if you're trying to trick me into saying I don't care about other people's kids as much as my own, you don't have to. I'll gladly admit it."

Rick thinks that, when push comes to shove, he feels the same.

Negan says, "Search and Rescue is looking for her now, aren't they?"

"And the National Guard."

"So sit tight and wait 'til morning. Let's get an idea of what's going on before rushing out there in the dark like a couple of idiots."

As much as Rick doesn't like admitting it, Negan is right. It would be incredibly stupid and hypocritical to commit the same sin for which he scolded Carl. And if danger truly lurks in the park (safe to assume it does), then heading out there at night would only exacerbate the danger. All of Rick's knowledge and training tells him to wait. That doesn't make it easy.

Negan sets aside the iPad and journal, pats the empty space on the bed. "C'mon, give that big, beautiful brain of yours a rest."

Rick joins him.

* * *

In the morning, Rick calls the park for more information while Negan keeps the kids occupied. Eventually he's connected to Eric, a park ranger familiar with the Peletier case. Rick explains that he's a private investigator hired by Sophia's parents to help find their missing daughter.

"We're not allowed to disclose information regarding an open investigation," Eric says.

"It's a missing person. There are no suspects, no criminal proceedings."

"It's not our policy to disclose that kind of information."

Rick rubs his forehead. "Well, what can you disclose? What about closed cases? Is there a list of missing persons who've been located inside the park?"

"We don't keep records of that."

This is not the answer Rick was expecting to hear. He'd been prepared for yet another 'not allowed to disclose that' response, but the total lack of a list regarding missing persons in the national park system?

"I'm sorry, what?"

"We don't have a list," Eric says, maintaining that cheerful, almost robotic tone. "We rely on institutional memory to help us with regards to missing people."

Rick almost blurts out _are you fucking kidding_ , but restrains himself. He's reminded of why he doesn't let Negan handle these kinds of things; Negan would have no such restraint. "Alright, how would I go about getting a list?"

Eric pauses for a moment, and Rick wonders if he's tripped him up. "That's a question for the sheriff's office. That's really not our responsibility."

Rick feels like he's taking crazy pills. _How is a list of missing persons who disappeared in your park_ not _your responsibility?_ "Can you tell me what jurisdiction this investigation belongs to?"

"The jurisdiction of the National Parks Service. We have our own full-time law enforcement officers in the park. They're very well trained, better than most police officers. We also have special agents, just like the FBI does, who serve as detectives in the follow-up branch of the National Park police."

Federal, which means county or local police couldn't step in without invitation. "So there's no other law enforcement agencies looking into this?"

"I'm not allowed to disclose that information."

Rick withholds a sigh. Jesus. "I've been told by the family that the National Guard was brought in."

Eric's voice is a little colder now. "I think you may have been misinformed. A missing person isn't a matter of national security."

Rick isn't sure what to think. He wants to believe Eric isn't lying to him, but he can't see a reason for the Peletiers to lie to him either. Someone, however, is obscuring the truth.

After a minute or two of haggling for more information, Rick hangs up. He doesn't remember being stonewalled this hard during the search for Lori at Panola Mountain State Park, but maybe being the husband of the missing woman played a part in the relative ease with which he'd been allowed to search. And he hadn't been asking for information then. Also, it probably helped that he'd been sheriff.

He heads inside and tells Negan about the phone call.

Negan scoffs. "That is shady as shit. We ought'a head over there and shake things up."

Rick is itching to make a move, but he doesn't want to be hasty. "I have an idea. It's a long shot, but I want to bring in those two guys from Redneck Bigfoot Hunters—"

Negan's already laughing before Rick has finished his sentence. Not a good sign, but Rick forges on.

"They know this kind of stuff, and we can use all the help we can get."

Negan's smile is somewhere south of sweet, almost mocking. "What happened to 'I prefer to work alone'?" He affects a disparaging voice when he quotes Rick, and Rick's a little offended. He does _not_ sound like that. Does he?

"I brought _you_ on board," Rick says, trying to make a point. "I see the value in having an extra pair of hands and eyes."

"But… those guys?"

"You'd know if you were watching a competent musician, right? Well, I can tell those two are the real deal. Or at least they're on the right track."

Negan doesn't look convinced.

"I know we're a team, but I'm gonna pull rank here and say I've been doin' this longer than you," Rick says. Negan frowns in a pouty sort of way, and Rick takes his hands in his own. "Just see if you can get ahold of them. I think you'd have better luck than me."

"And if I strike out?"

"Then we play it our way."

It takes Negan about thirty minutes to get in contact with Daryl Dixon, one half of the Redneck Bigfoot Hunters duo. Negan passes the phone to Rick, then Rick introduces himself and gives Daryl a rundown of the case.

"I know it's a long way to go, and on such short notice," Rick says, "but we just want to help this family find their daughter. You know areas like this, and you're open to the possibility that whoever—or whatever—took Sophia is beyond most people's belief."

"A missing girl, huh?" Daryl murmurs, like he's thinking it over.

Rick hears another rough male voice in the background of the call. That must be Merle, the brother.

"Tell him we'll do it if we can bring the camera crew," Merle says.

"Shut up," Daryl sneers, then his voice is clearer when he says, "No cameras. Just us. Wouldn't feel right, makin' a buck off of somebody's tragedy."

Rick nods to himself. Daryl seems like an alright guy. "That's perfect."

"You can't hunt in the parks, so whatever this thing is, we better be able to kill it with somethin' we can sneak inside," Daryl says.

That hadn't really occurred to Rick until this moment. "We don't know for certain what took Sophia. But it doesn't leave tracks or a scent. It's like nothing we've seen before."

"Then how the hell are we supposed to hunt it?" Merle asks.

Daryl shushes his brother again. "Maybe it's not an animal. I think there's holes or portals in reality. They don't stay open, and they don't stay in one place. People just fall through 'em."

Hadn't Negan suggested something similar? Daryl's explanation reminds Rick of the Soul Eater dimension.

Before Rick can answer, Daryl says, "We're on our way."


	21. Chapter 21

"You really think these country bumpkins have any idea what's going on?" Negan asks as they head to Charlottesville to pick up said bumpkins.

Rick's sitting in the passenger seat of the Mazda, as it's the only vehicle they own that's big enough to comfortably hold four grown men. Before leaving the house, Rick emptied the weapons cache into the trunk of Negan's Charger, in case the car is searched when they enter the park.

"Well, this country bumpkin thinks they know a little more than we do," Rick says.

"Don't pull that 'Thank God I'm a Country Boy' shit on me. How'd you get them to come all the way out here, anyway?"

"Guess I'm just persuasive."

"Or they heard your accent and thought, 'good, one of us.'"

Rick tosses Negan a cynical half-smile; they both know Negan's teasing holds no weight. At this point, it's just par for the course. "Remember to keep the flirting to a minimum. Not all of us country bumpkins are as open-minded as I am."

"I know; I'm just busting your balls before I have to play nice."

"Wouldn't hurt you to play nice more often. I've got sensitive balls."

"Don't I know it." Negan turns up the stereo.

"Is this my punishment for bringing these guys in?" Rick wonders. They're listening to the band's newly-released remix album, which Negan is oddly fond of. Eugene's talent for electronic sounds has breathed new life into some of the group's older songs. Negan thinks at least one of the remixes will be in a commercial by the end of the year.

Negan laughs; Rick has voiced his displeasure with the modernized songs more than once. "It's number one on iTunes, Rick. Can't argue with that. The people have spoken."

The Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport is a quick jaunt to Shenandoah National Park; the Dixon brothers must have done their research. Negan pulls up curbside and spots them immediately. They're hard to miss; Daryl's wearing a plaid shirt that's just as ripped as his jeans, and a leather vest. Merle is decked out in camouflage colors: khaki shirt, dark green cargo pants. They're both wearing hiking boots that must have been hell taking off in the airport security line.

"Well, at least they dress the part," Negan says. He dials down the music; he doubts the Dixons will appreciate the EDM flavor of the Saviors' past hits.

Rick hops out of the car, introduces himself to the two fellow hunters. After a quick exchange of words, Daryl and Merle load their duffel bags into the trunk, then squeeze themselves into the backseat. It's almost comical, Negan thinks, seeing those two scraggly, rugged men in the usual seats of Carl and Judith.

"Howdy-fuckin'-ho, boys," Negan says with a small wave. "I'm Negan, Rick's hunting partner. Thanks for coming up."

"Negan? Like the rock star?" Daryl wonders, in a way that says if he's wrong he doesn't much care.

Negan gets them onto the road. "Yeah, that's my day job."

Merle barks a raspy laugh. "No shit?"

"I shit you not, my man."

"Why'd you choose this?" Daryl asks.

"What, hunting?" Negan withholds the truth. "The way things are going, I don't think the band's gonna last too much longer."

"That's a goddamn shame," Merle says. "Your first record is up there with the best of 'em."

"Blush, blush."

In the rear-view mirror, Daryl looks squinty and dissatisfied, like he doesn't appreciate his brother gushing over Negan's discography. Or, perhaps, he senses that Negan is hiding something.

"Rick tells me you two might have an idea what we're dealing with," Negan says, getting them onto an easier subject.

Daryl nods. "This girl didn't leave a trail or a scent or nothin'. Like she just vanished, right? This ain't a creature. It's a gate."

"We had a case a couple months back," Rick says. "A Soul Eater. It pulled me into another world. You think it's something like that?"

"Yeah. We lost our old man in the woods," Daryl says. "Me and Merle were berry-picking in the forest near where we lived. Our Pops was huntin' deer not too far from us. We could see him from where we were, but the second we turned away, he disappeared. Gone. His gun and everything. Even on foot, he couldn't have gotten that far. We would'a seen him."

"Holy shit," Negan says. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. He was a prick."

"Did he ever turn up?" asks Rick.

Daryl shakes his head. "Nah."

"So you think people are just falling ass over teakettle into these portals?" Negan says. "Or you think something's pulling them in?"

"I reckon it's a mix of both," Merle says.

"If the portals don't stay in one place," Rick says, "how do we find them?"

Daryl says, "We find the place the girl disappeared. That gate opened there for a reason."

Recalling something he read in Rick's notes, Negan says, "Granite, right? Something about boulders holding an electromagnetic charge. Maybe every once in a while, the charge gets fucky and opens one of these rifts?"

"You read my notes," Rick says with a hint of amusement.

"Don't sound so impressed." Negan stops himself before delving into flirtation.

"You've been in one of these portals before?" Daryl asks Rick. "What was it like?"

"It's the same, but it's different. Like an alternate world. Real dark and depressing. We got out by drawing two sigils: mine in the portal, and his in the real world."

Daryl rubs the scruff on his chin as if in deep thought.

By mid to late afternoon, they make it into the park with minimal resistance. Park Ranger Eric seems distrustful of Rick, but when he recognizes Daryl and Merle in the backseat, his demeanor shifts as though a switch has been flipped.

"You're the Dixon brothers? I love your show!" Eric says. "Are you going to film the search?"

"No cameras," Daryl says.

"Well, it's an honor to have you here. Let us know if you need anything." Eric waves them inside, and Negan pulls in.

"What am I, chopped liver?" Negan grumbles to Eric after the car has passed him by. "I've got songs older than you, kid. Show some respect for your elders."

Rick laughs, attempting to smother the sound with a hand, but he isn't very successful.

They meet up with Carol and Ezekiel after getting inside the park. Rick must have let them know he was coming, because they don't look surprised to see him. Carol hugs Rick and Negan in relief; Ezekiel's more of a handshake kind of guy.

"Thank you so much for volunteering to search," Carol says. "It means a lot to me."

Ezekiel nods in agreement.

"I brought in some help," Rick says, and introduces them to Daryl and Merle. "They know terrain like this. And they might know what happened to Sophia."

Carol gasps a short, hopeful intake of breath, one hand raised to her mouth. "Can you find her? Is she going to be okay?"

"I'm gonna do everything I can to find your little girl," Daryl tells her with a startling amount of reassurance. Negan didn't think the guy had it in him.

"Can you show us where Sophia disappeared?" Rick asks.

Carol agrees. Rick and Daryl haul the equipment bags out of the trunk. Inside of Rick's backpack are camping supplies, food, water, EMF meters, and small knives; Negan's got no idea what Daryl and Merle were able to sneak through airport security.

The four hunters follow Carol and Ezekiel as they lead the way. It's the final month of summer, and the trees shimmer with bright green leaves. Overhead, a clear blue sky stretches out to eternity. The uneven slopes of mountains and hills decorate the distance. Negan wonders how it's possible for this beautiful place to host such an ugly tragedy. He has fallen in step with Rick, who's hanging back as Daryl and Merle talk with Carol and Ezekiel.

"You think Carl's gonna be okay?" Rick asks in a soft voice so as not to be overheard.

They had left Carl in charge of Judith at the house, figuring the kid wouldn't make poor life choices when the consequences could directly affect his little sister. Since the aftermath of the Nachtkrapp attack, Carl has matured somehow, as though his brush with death has enlightened him. He has coped with being grounded from TV, internet, and video games by practicing guitar, and on occasion Negan has heard the familiar riffs of his own music from behind Carl's bedroom door.

"He'll be fine. I think he's expecting a reprieve for good behavior. He wouldn't blow that now," Negan says.

Rick makes a noncommittal noise. He's holding the EMF meter, watching the display for signs of activity. "Maybe not on purpose." Rick's brain seems to turn into a sputtering pot of chili when it comes to worrying about his children. Negan finds it easier to keep a clearer head, and every now and then he wonders if Rick resents him for it. But that doesn't mean Negan can't understand Rick's worries.

"We've got nosy neighbors," Negan says. "Anything goes wrong, and Maggie'll have the cops at our place quicker than I can get you off with my fingers." Rick jabs an elbow into Negan's side. "What? It's true."

"Professional," Rick reminds him.

Is it really Negan's fault that their relationship has an undercurrent of innuendo and sexual tension? His words aren't the problem; he could tape his mouth shut, and his body would still be drawn to Rick's own like a magnet, as if pulled into his orbit.

It's about a thirty-minute walk to the spot where Sophia vanished. On one side of the trail is a steep incline of rocks and trees; on the other, a sloping hill that descends into woods and tree-covered mountains. It would be, Negan thinks, quite picturesque under any other circumstances. He can see a small group of Search and Rescue workers canvassing one of the hills below.

"It was right here," Carol says with a slight tightness in her voice. "I thought maybe—maybe she ran down there." She points to the crevasse.

"But you would'a seen her," Daryl says. "She couldn't be that fast. You would'a heard her crunching through the brush and over the leaves."

Carol nods.

"And it would be impossible for her to have scaled those rocks in such a short time," Ezekiel says, pointing to the opposite side of the trail.

Rick and Negan share a look. _Rocks. Granite._

Rick points the EMF meter at the wall of rock. The device begins to click and beep, gaining intensity as Rick moves closer. "Somethin' about this wall…" he mutters to himself and chews what Negan thinks is a hangnail on the edge of his thumb.

Daryl and Merle move in to get a look at the meter. "You built your own EMF?" Merle asks.

Rick nods, not taking his eyes off the gauge. "Don't leave home without it." The meter's crackle of noise heightens; Negan's always thought it sounded like some kind of unnatural insect purring and clicking its mandibles together. "A lot of activity here," Rick says. He moves slowly along the wall, scanning the rocks with the EMF meter, like he's trying to see if the reading stays the same for the entire length of the incline.

Negan follows him around the winding trail and listens for the beeps. The frequency of the meter's noises sounds consistent; they're not dropping off, and Negan wonders if the whole stretch of land is sitting on some tear in the fabric of space-time. Or there are a shit-load of faeries lurking between the boulders.

Negan's glancing around, checking over his shoulder to make sure the others haven't fallen through a portal back there. He feels a strange sensation, as if he's inside of a plane that's just depressurized. His ears pop, and his stomach lurches like he's been dropped from a great height.

Carol shrieks. Daryl and Merle holler at Negan, pointing to something in front of him. Negan snaps his gaze forward.

It's as though the air has transformed into a shimmering pool of mercury. The world oscillates before Negan's eyes, like he's staring at it through a cloud of engine exhaust, or the ripple of heat on a scorching summer's day. Rick is pulled into the disturbance, and the strange void devours him.

"Oh no you fucking don't!" Negan makes a dive for Rick, not trying to pull him back but to join him in whatever lay beyond the water-like mirage. The world he knows wavers, then it's gone completely. They hit the ground with various swears and noises of pain. The EMF meter, scattered from Rick's hand, goes silent.

Black spots dance in front of Negan's eyes, but he has no time to gauge his surroundings. An inhuman roar blasts hot against his face; in his nightmares he still hears it. Scrambling for his knife in his side holster, Negan looks up to see an enormous creature silhouetted against the moon. It looks like nothing he has seen before.

The beast is nearly twenty feet tall and sinewy, with long arms and long legs, the proportions all wrong. Each appendage is tipped with even longer talons. Like H.R. Giger's Alien, the creature has no facial features; its head is a gaping mouth filled with countless sharp teeth. In the eerie blue-green glow of the moon, Negan can see it has no skin, rather an exoskeleton of red trembling musculature. The creature also lacks genitals; it's like a Ken doll down there, which would make Negan laugh if he could make any noise at all.

As the creature reaches for Rick, Negan frees his knife from its holster and stabs the blade into the monster's hand. The creature shrieks, jerking back its hand, and the blade rips through gristle and flesh.

Negan finds his voice. "Run!" He grabs a fistful of Rick's shirt and pulls as he stumbles upright. Rick scrambles to his feet.

They run. The creature gives chase. Negan hears and feels its footsteps shaking the ground beneath him. He has no idea where they're headed; the world is hidden in shadow, and his eyes have not yet adjusted to the darkness. But he has just enough light to follow the trail. In fact, as Negan covers more ground, he realizes this is the same path he'd been on just moments ago. Except Carol, Ezekiel, and the Dixon brothers are gone, and there's a giant junkless monster chasing them.

And for some reason it seems to be snowing, yet there is no blanket of snow on the ground.

Negan slides down the embankment, skidding over an incline of gravel and rocks. "Head for the woods!" he yells to Rick, not bothering to look behind him. He assumes Rick is there. If not, well, he doesn't want to know.

The heel of Rick's boot catches on one of the rocks. Rick falls forward, losing his footing, and tumbles down the rest of the embankment. It's not very far to fall, and the backpack cushions Rick each time he bounces down the slope. Junkless covers more ground due to its size and closes the distance between it and Rick with ease.

Negan jumps down the rest of the way and crouches to help Rick. Junkless roars again, its claws slashing through the back of Negan's shirt and into his skin. Negan barely registers the pain.

Rick has his knife out, and he drives the blade up, piercing the soft, fleshy underside of Junkless' jaw. The monster screams in livid disbelief and rage, dark blood spurting when Rick jerks the knife free.

"Let's go!" Rick orders, and Negan doesn't need to be told twice. They're not even fully upright as they crash into the cover of the forest. Leaves and branches crunch like bones under their feet. Junkless roars and stomps after them. It swings its too-long arms through the trees, knocking aside branches and sending clusters of leaves spinning to the forest floor. Rick and Negan take cover behind a cluster of thick tree trunks. The canopy of leaves above them cuts their visibility down to half.

Rick slips the backpack off his shoulder and unzips the front compartment. His hands shuffles around inside, searching for something. He takes out a can of bear spray and a lighter.

Junkless continues to growl and thrash through the trees. It finds them as though led by scent, its razor-like teeth dripping with saliva and blood as it launches itself foward.

"Let's dance, Dickless!" Negan brandishes his knife. He tries to side-step as the creature charges, but its long arms catch him, as though Negan is a fish trapped in a net. Negan slams into a tree. The impact knocks him breathless and sends the knife in his hand skittering across the ground. Junkless has the front of Negan's shirt gripped in its blade-like fingers. The monster is even uglier up close, its gigantic mouth lined with shark's teeth. Its jaw stretches, like it's about to devour Negan whole, and Negan smells the fetid stench of decay on its breath.

A burst of light erupts from behind the creature. Junkless explodes in orange flames, emitting a primal scream. It drops Negan, and he slides down the tree trunk. 

Negan doesn't hesitate. He grabs his knife from the forest floor and jabs it into one of Junkless' Tyrannosaurus-like feet. Another howl. The monster screeches as it retreats, its long arms swinging. Negan notices a bit of a limp in Junkless' gait. The pounding stomps of its footfalls grow quieter as it flees the forest and vanishes into the night.

"Fuck," Negan sighs and slumps against the tree. He takes a moment to catch his breath, his heartbeat bloodthunder in his ears.

Rick lowers the can of bear mace and switches off the lighter. "You alright?"

"I'll live." Negan steadies himself, trying to stop his hands from shaking as adrenaline chugs through him. "What the fuckity-fuck was that thing?"

"I don't know," Rick says. He drops the weapons into his backpack, zips it up and shoulders it.

Negan thinks he hears a tightness in Rick's tone, and he doesn't like it. He's heard that tone before when Rick scolded Carl after the Nachtkrapp incident.

"What's eatin' you?" Negan asks. "Aside from me later."

The joke doesn't soften Rick's anger. "You were s'posed to stay with them! You stay back so you can take care of Carl and Judith! That's the plan!"

"Oh, calm your succulent man-tits. Things haven't gone FUBAR yet. And I saved your ass twice in the last five minutes. You'd be working your way through that thing's digestive tract right now if I hadn't jumped in with you."

"Carl and Judith need you," Rick says. "If something happens to me—You promised!"

"Well, I fucked up! I guess I go down _on_ you, and I go down _with_ you."

There's no dousing Rick's fury with jokes. "How could you be so _stupid_?"

Rick has no business being angry at him. Rick knew exactly what he was getting into when he committed to a relationship with Negan: an emotionally needy, self-aggrandizing blowhard who hates himself and cannot bear to lose more than he already has. It was all there in writing, lyrics printed in the liner notes of his albums, the words strong and piercing through his music. When push comes to shove, he has always shown Rick the weakest parts of himself. And Rick seemed to accept Negan as-is, like he was purchased from a second-hand store with no return policy on clearance items.

That acceptance makes it worse when Negan's brain cross-connects Rick's words and tone with a memory. For a moment he's back in that studio apartment with She Who Must Not Be Named, and he's ten years younger and dumber, and he's just played a song for her. He can still hear her words in his head: " _You might as well give it to Britney Spears or some other fake, manufactured pretty face with nothing new to say. Christ, Negan, you could change the world, but you're too stupid to see it."_

The words explode out of Negan, puncturing the night. "Hey, go fuck yourself! You knew I was a shit husband and a shit father from the get-go. Don't blame me. I warned you. Kicking my ass to the curb would've been the smartest goddamn thing you ever did."

Rick's about to say something when a little voice calls from deeper in the forest: "Hello? Can you help my find my parents? I'm lost."

Negan feels a jolt. He stares into the black thicket of trees, trying to locate the voice.

With the same degree of gentleness he uses on Judith, Rick says, "Sophia? Is that you? Your mom and dad are real worried about you. Why don't you come on out?"

"You have to promise," the girl says. She sounds strained, as though she's been crying. "To protect me from the monster."

"Well, you're in luck, darlin'," Negan says. "Me and Rick here are monster hunters. Best in the business." He doesn't know if that's true or not, but the kid probably won't demand to see a résumé. "We just sent one packing with its tail between its legs a little while ago. Maybe you saw that?"

It's quiet for a moment, then Negan hears the rustling of leaves and branches.

Sophia steps out of the trees.


	22. Chapter 22

Relief washes through Rick at the sight of Sophia safe and unharmed. She moves toward them with hesitant steps, as though fearing the monster might jump out at any moment. Rick is somewhat concerned about that too.

"Your parents hired us to find you," Rick says, hoping to coax her closer. "Do you remember how you got here?"

Sophia shakes her head. "I—I was with my parents at the park—we were hiking on the trail—and then it was night, and I woke up and the monster was here. I ran and hid until it went away."

Her story lines up with how Rick discovered this strange dimension. "Is there anyone else here?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. I think everyone's gone." She's close enough now that Rick brings her in to the protective circle of himself and Negan. Being surrounded by adults who claim to be capable of guarding her seems to relax Sophia, even if only just a bit. "Why'd Mom and Dad leave?"

"I don't think they were ever here," Negan says.

Rick nudges him with an elbow. Best not to give the kid an existential crisis.

"I mean, I think that toothy jackoff brought you into another dimension, one that looks like the one we live in."

"Like the Twilight Zone?" Sophia asks.

Negan grins, like he's impressed the kid knows the reference. "Yeah, kind of."

"I've been here before. Or a place like it," Rick tells her. "It's like… a parallel universe, I guess."

"So how do we get out?" Sophia asks.

"We're stumped on that one too, kiddo," Negan says. "But maybe you can help us figure it out. What do you remember before you ended up here? Any weird feelings, sounds, smells?"

Sophia's face scrunches up in thought. "My ears popped like I was on an airplane, but I thought it was 'cause we were up high on the path. I tried to climb up the hill, but I slipped and skinned my knee."

Carol and Ezekiel hadn't mentioned that, but why would they? Kids skin their knees all the time, and it's not as though Sophia was gravely hurt. This nugget of information sparks a connection in Rick's head. Before he'd been pulled through the rift, he had been worrying a hangnail on his thumb. He wouldn't be able to see it now in the shroud of darkness, but he's willing to bet there's blood on that thumb. Maybe not a lot, but enough.

And the creature had been able to find them so easily in the forest. It had gone after Negan—who, coincidentally, had been clawed just moments before.

Blood.

"When the rift opened, I felt the air shift," Negan says. "Like, I don't know, how animals can sense the pressure changes before a storm."

"I felt somethin' like that too," Rick agrees.

"Do you have a phone?" Sophia asks. "Maybe we can call for help."

Rick opens the backpack at his feet and rummages around until he finds one of the cell phones. It's his own, and when he presses the home button, the screen is black. He holds the power switch to no avail. He tries a hard reset, but the phone might as well be a fancy brick in his hand. Rick considers the tumble down the ravine might have broken the device, but the phone's sturdy snap-on case protects it from impact, and it had been cushioned in the pack with other items. And there would be fracture lines, cracked glass. Some indication the device is broken.

He tries Negan's phone and receives the same lack of response. "Phones are dead," he says, mostly to himself.

Negan reaches into the pack, withdraws a flashlight. He switches it on and off. The beam of light does not appear. "Of course," he grouses, dropping the flashlight back into the bag. "Hey, try the EMF."

"I dropped it when I fell in."

"There should be another one in there."

Rick digs around and finds a spare EMF. Negan must have packed it when Rick wasn't paying attention. He tries switching it on and off. No beeps, chirps, or even a light to indicate power. But it doesn't appear to be broken either.

"I think the portal zapped our electronics when we went through," Rick says.

"Makes sense, right? If all this shi—" Negan catches himself, remembering there's a child present—"stuff works off electromagnetic energy, maybe it overloaded our phones."

That sounds good enough to Rick, as he's not a scientist. Regardless of the cause, the lack of electricity here doesn't help them. It would be impossible to generate enough electromagnetic energy to open a rift, even if they had the proper equipment.

Which must mean the monster is opening these portals.

Negan cocks his head. "You hear that?"

"Hear what?" Rick listens. There's nothing to hear. No crickets, no owls, no cicadas. Only their soft puffs of breath and thrum of Rick's heartbeat in his ears.

"Silence," Negan says, in case Rick didn't pick up on that.

"It's always quiet here," Sophia murmurs. "It's scary, but you can hear where the monster is better."

"You think if we kill that dickless wonder, the rift'll open back up?" Negan asks.

"I think the monster opens the rifts," Rick says. "We kill it, we might be stuck here for good."

They stand there for a moment, lost in thought. Part of the reason Rick wanted Negan to stay behind with the others was so he could figure out a way to open the portal from the other side. Having both of them stuck here does no good, and somehow Rick doubts Daryl or Merle will be the heroes of this particular jaunt.

 _How could you be so stupid?_

He'd said that to Negan, but part of Rick meant it for himself. He had been incredibly stupid to come here, to fuck with things he didn't fully understand. The more dangerous the situation, the more clearly you need to think in order to survive, and this case has kept Rick from thinking clearly since the very beginning. He'd been lured in by the similarities to Lori's disappearance, by the tug-at-the-heartstrings appeal of finding a lost child.

A chill rips through him, drying the sweat on his brow. Has he doomed all of them by taking this case?

"If we can't get out, we have to make the monster let us out," Sophia says, and it strikes Rick as brilliant and idiotic at once.

"Hot damn!" Negan says. "I think she's on to something!"

Sophia looks at them, as though seeking approval. "It goes out to bring people in, right?"

Rick nods. "Seems like it smells blood."

"Let's put our sexy brains to work," Negan says. "How do we make this thing open a rift? Monsters have to follow the rules. Deep down, they're animals, just like we are. And what's an animal's main drive? Survival."

"But we don't even know what this thing is," Rick says. "We don't know the lore."

Negan gives him an encouraging nod, like he wants Rick to figure this out on his own. What observations would Rick make in his journal about this creature? Aside from its physical appearance, it has a keen sense of smell, and its weakness…

"It's afraid of fire." Rick reaches into the backpack and takes out the bear mace and the lighter.

"You got it, Smokey Bear."

* * *

The plan takes a shockingly short time to set up. Rick, Negan, and Sophia navigate out of the forest. A canvas of stars hangs in the black paper sky. Rick has no idea how much time has passed since they arrived. Could be ten minutes. Could be ten hours. From his backpack, Rick has gathered the mace, lighter, and a wool blanket. He sprays the blanket with the mace and lays it over a pile of dry leaves.

"You make sure you get out with Sophia," Rick tells Negan, giving him a look that says he means business. "No matter what."

The look of despair on Negan's face tears through Rick, but doesn't waver his resolve. They didn't make it this far just to die because Negan's a sentimental creampuff.

"Why's it gotta be you?" Negan asks, a waver in his voice. "Carl's gonna be pissed if he finds out he's stuck with me. You're his dad."

Rick smiles. "So are you."

"You dick…" Negan opens his mouth to say more but stops. He knows there will be no deterring Rick. He clutches Sophia's hand in his own. "You stay behind me, okay? And get ready to run like hell once that thing makes a break for it."

Sophia nods. She doesn't seem to grasp that there is no plan B. This is their one shot out of here.

Negan looks at Rick, and the expression on his face communicates everything Rick needs to know. Negan loves him, will always love him, and thinks he's a grade-A prick for doing this. Rick wonders—hopes, really—if Negan can read him just as easily.

"Alright. Let's get this party started." Negan grasps the knife and drags the blade over the top of his forearm. The thin gash weeps blood. In the distance, the monster roars. Sophia squeezes Negan's hand tighter.

Rick lights the blanket, and the three of them run as the fire crackles and bursts to life.

The monster emerges from over the canyon, its long limbs allowing it to scale the peak with ease. It sprints for the group with a speed that seems to defy its size. As it hones in on them, the scent of smoke seems to register with the beast. It slows, perhaps taking in the steady burn of its home with invisible eyes.

Rick throws the can of bear mace into the fire like a grenade. The boom hits a few seconds later.

The pressurized can bursts from the heat, and the added mace accelerates the fire. Flames whoosh outward, catching onto trees and brush. Thick black smoke spirals into the midnight sky. The world glows orange.

"Let's go!" Rick orders.

Negan rushes toward the creature, pulling Sophia along. He jumps, throws his free arm around one of the creature's spindly legs. Sophia scrabbles for a hold on the beast, but she has to let go of Negan to get a secure grip around its leg. Rick leaps onto the creature's other leg. The monster thrashes, trying to swat away its tiny passengers, but it's more concerned about survival than the annoyance of humans a fraction of its size. It flees the encroaching heat of the fire, howling a distressed sound as a rift opens.

Rick closes his eyes, feels the air _turn_ as they pass through, almost like the texture of the world around him has shifted. He lets go as the monster makes a mad dash for the woods. Negan and Sophia tumble to the dirt, dazed but uninjured. The creature's thudding footsteps fade into the forest. Rick gazes at the sky. The sun is gone, the moon in its place. Time must be different in that other place; Rick thought only an hour or so had passed.

There is no fire. The air smells cleaner, and the falling flecks of what Rick assumed was snow are no more.

"Oh shit, oh fuck, oh God," Negan huffs. "Rick, for fuck's sake, tell me you made it."

"Watch your language around the kid," says Rick.

Negan laughs a teary, relieved sound.

Rick forces himself up. His head throbs, and his muscles burn. He offers Sophia a hand and helps her to her feet. "That thing ran off into the woods," he says to Negan. "Let's get her back to her parents. Then we finish this."

Negan sighs as though he has been tasked with the impossible. "We saved the kid. Can't we call it a day?"

"We let that thing out," Rick says, shaking his head. "It's even more dangerous now. "

"How's that? It's got nowhere to hide. Let the park cops handle it. They're trained, right?"

"Not for this." Rick bends down, seizes Negan's hand. "C'mon. We got work to do."


	23. Chapter 23

"So, good news, bad news," Negan says when they're all gathered in the nearest park ranger station. Carol and Ezekiel haven't let go of Sophia since she jumped into their arms five minutes ago. Daryl and Merle stand off to the side, arms folded like they're waiting for a late bus.

"You brought the girl back," Daryl says. "The hell's the bad news?"

"Right?" Negan throws out a hand, as though demonstrating to Rick how much more rational the sleeveless redneck is right now. Rick gives Negan the Look, which isn't half as threatening when he's doing it while eating a granola bar. "But we might have piggybacked in on a bloodthirsty extradimensional creature."

"Same thing that took the kid?" Merle asks. There's an odd flicker in his eyes, like the prospect of hunting something excites him.

Rick nods and gives them a rundown of what transpired in the alternate dimension. Daryl and Merle's expressions don't change much.

"I'll get our officers on this," Park Ranger Eric says. "They have weapons. They can handle it."

Rick scoffs. "I doubt bullets are gonna stop this thing."

"You got any better ideas?" Eric says, and the challenge in his voice is laughable.

"It's afraid of fire," Rick says. He takes one last bite of the granola bar and tosses the cellophane in the small trash bin near his feet. "But even if we get the thing out in the open and light it up, it could run into the trees."

"Collateral damage," Negan says, dismissive. He wants to just _go home_ already. The last thing he wants is to fuck around with the threat of losing Rick again.

Rick shoots him another look; Negan rolls his eyes. "You still got the National Guard here?" Rick asks. "Seems like this could unfold into a matter of national security real fast."

Eric's expression falters, like he doesn't want to admit that he lied, or that whoever made the call knew more than they were letting on about the disappearances.

"Maybe it'll jump back to where it came from," Carol offers, and Negan appreciates her optimism, however misguided.

"We burned down its home. No place for it to go back to."

"So you brought it here?" Daryl sneers.

"Hey, you try figuring out a way to bend the fabric of space-time in a dimension with no electricity," Negan snaps.

"We brought Sophia back the only way we knew how," Rick adds to soften Negan's harshness. "We'll fix this."

It's in this moment that Negan's patience shatters like glass. He cut off his anger, like crimping a hose, to deal with rescuing Sophia, but she's safe now, and Rick is still on this ridiculous bullshit. "And how do you suggest we do that, Rick? We don't have the firepower to do _shit._ We got lucky getting out of there. You really wanna push it after you chewed me out for the same damn stunt you're trying to pull?"

Rick stares at Negan, sets his jaw the way he does when he's angry but doesn't want to concede that Negan may be right. "We brought this thing here. This is on us."

"Why are you making this so hard? Leave this shit alone and let the National Guard blow that thing to kingdom come. One of us gets iced by H. R. Giger's Ken doll, that sets Carl on a course to make hunting a family business. Just like you did when Lori died. You want your boy going down that path?"

"Don't use our kids as collateral in an argument," Rick growls.

"I'm not letting you die, Rick. That's my job, and I will see it through. Do not make me lose anyone else." Negan doesn't plan on saying that last part. Rick winces like he'd rather be chewed up by a shark than have this conversation.

They're quiet for a moment. When Carol speaks it comes as a shock, because Negan briefly forgot anyone else was here: "Go home to your family," she says, holding her daughter in her arms. "You brought our little girl back. That's more than enough."

Ezekiel nods. "You don't need to save the world. Good fathers and husbands, men who rescue lost children… They are all heroes. Perhaps the everyday heroes are the greatest of all."

Negan thinks that's poetic as fuck, and he appreciates Ezekiel's candor.

"Y'all can leave, but we're stickin' around," Merle says. "I wanna see this thing."

Daryl makes a noise of agreement.

"Fine by me," Negan says, lifting his hands in acquiesce. "Party's all yours." He shoulders the backpack sitting at Rick's feet and claps a hand on Rick's shoulder. "C'mon, let's hit the road. The kids ought'a be asleep when we get home."

Rick goes along, albeit grudgingly, almost like Judith does when it's bedtime but she'd rather draw or have a stuffed animal tea party. Yes, Negan can definitely see where Judith gets the angry pouting from.

They're a few steps out the door when Daryl says, "Rick."

Rick turns, and Negan goes with him. Sounds of the night buzz around them: the chitter of insects, the rustle of leaves in the breeze, the distant hoot of an owl. It feels serene, despite the looming threat of a gigantic monster lurking somewhere in the park.

"Y'all married?" Daryl says as he steps closer.

"No, we prefer living in sin," Negan says. He's not sure where Daryl's going with this, and he knows he's already blown their 'professional' cover by outing them as a couple. Whatever. Negan's too tired to deal with anyone else's bullshit today; if Daryl makes any homophobic comments, he's getting a punch in the teeth.

But Daryl doesn't go that route. He looks at Rick and asks the same question he asked Negan when they first met: "Why'd you choose hunting?" Is this some sort of zen riddle? Daryl doesn't seem like the kind of person who gives a shit about people's backstories, but maybe he'll surprise Negan again.

"Moments like that," Rick says, tipping his chin in the direction of the cabin, where Sophia and her parents are happily reunited. "Saving people. Cops won't listen to this monster stuff. Somebody's gotta find the answers."

"So why's it gotta be you?" Daryl asks, not confrontationally. He seems to genuinely want to know. "You got him, you got kids. You choose this life, the people around you get hurt. Or you get lucky and end up dead. But that means he's gotta dig the hole." Daryl motions to Negan with his chin.

"Then why do you do it?" Rick counters.

"Like he said, family business. Our Pops raised us to hunt. It's all we got. You got somethin' else." Daryl shrugs as though he has said too much. "Thanks for bringing us in," he says before walking back into the ranger station.

* * *

It's quiet on the two-hour drive back home. Negan has switched off his own music, opting for a playlist of classic rock, the volume low enough to allow Rick to start a conversation if he chooses.

Over the soft backdrop of Bob Seger's "Against the Wind," Rick finally speaks up. "What you said back there… You're not a shit husband or father. I don't think those things about you. You gotta know that by now. You're a great father; that's why I want you there for the kids. And you're a good husband, or you would be if we were married."

Is that suggestion in Rick's voice, or is Negan imagining things?

"I'm sorry if I made you feel like you're not enough," Rick continues. "'Cause you are. You've always been."

Negan still doesn't know how to respond to that. He takes the words like bitter medicine, swallowing them down with a grimace but feeling better having done so. "But you were right. I shouldn't have jumped in after you. Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't even think, Rick. It was just instinct. No plan."

Rick nods. "I know. I get it. Just like I get why you went crazy on that Nachtkrapp. You don't wanna lose anybody else. But you don't think your own life's worth saving."

That's a little too close to home for Negan's liking. "Neither do you. You were ready to throw yourself into the damn pit back there with guns a'blazing. And for what?"

Rick pauses. "What if there were more missing people in there? How many of them did I kill by lighting that place up?"

"Sophia said she didn't hear anyone else, and it was dead quiet. But you'll drive yourself crazy thinking about that shit. Just let it go. You can't save everyone." Negan chuckles, realizing he's had it all backwards. "You're the one with the savior complex, honey bunch. But you saved me, so why not go ahead and call it even?"

Rick smiles, but Negan wonders if he truly understands the scope of that statement. Rick didn't just save Negan from the dickless monster in the Twilight Zone; Rick saved Negan from himself.

* * *

It's late when they make it to the house, but Carl is still awake. He'd texted Rick and Negan while their phones were off, like a worried parent trying to play it cool. Rick texted back on the drive home, so Carl has been expecting their return.

Carl hugs Rick, then Negan, which comes as a surprise. "I was worried about you guys. I read all this stuff online about those missing people and what could be taking them. Did you find her? The girl?"

Rick tells him they did.

"So what took her? Was it a monster or just a wormhole?"

"A little of column A, a little of column B." Negan pulls his shredded shirt over his head, tosses it in the garbage bin. Rick sees the slashes on his lower back; the blood has dried, and luckily the cuts aren't deep. "I'm beat, kid. I'll give you the juicy details tomorrow." He heads up the stairs. "Rick, patch me up?"

"Yeah." Rick gives Carl another hug for good measure. Carl doesn't protest or wriggle out of Rick's arms. In this brief moment, Carl is a little boy again, and Rick is a father who has not yet let him down. "You're ungrounded, as of right now," Rick tells him, letting the rest of Carl's punishment go like an autumn leaf in the breeze.

Carl thanks him, sounding bewildered. "Why'd you change your mind?"

"'Cause there's more important things. And you served your time."

"Does that make Negan my P.O?"

Rick huffs a laugh into Carl's hair. "No one likes a smart-ass."

"Is that why you're dating one?"

* * *

Rick checks on Judith, who is sound asleep in her bed. Her nightlight glows softly in the corner of the room, as though warding off things that might lurk in the dark. From the doorway, Rick watches her sleep for a few minutes. The sight of his daughter fills him with a good kind of melancholy—sad but incredibly sweet. He thinks about what he might do if he were in Carol and Ezekiel's place, if Judith vanished from his life, her fate uncertain. He thinks about Sophia safe and warm in her own bed, her parents watching over her much the same way Rick's doing for Judith now.

Rick disinfects and patches up Negan's wounds. Negan is unresponsive when his cuts bubble up from the hydrogen peroxide, and Rick wonders if Negan has fallen asleep right here on the edge of the bathtub. But it's a rare moment when Negan is quiet, and he has given Rick a lot to think about. Daryl has, too.

 _You choose this life, the people around you get hurt._

And isn't that the way it's been? Carl almost got himself killed trying to play Rick's role. Negan seems to exist in a constant state of underlying worry that Rick will vanish from his life in some gruesome way. Judith is too young to develop such neuroses, but she has lost people, too. Everyone in Rick's household has suffered great loss, and here's Rick, doing his damndest to go out in a blaze of glory.

Rick presses his fingers on the edges of one of Negan's cuts. It must be a sensitive spot, because Negan jerks and grumbles, "Jeez, Nurse Ratched."

"Just seeing if you're awake."

Negan gives him the finger.

After a quick shower, they fall into bed, exhausted. Negan has an arm curled under Rick. "If I wasn't so tired I'd make sweet motherfucking love to you, Rick."

Rick smiles. "We're good?"

"Fuck yeah, why wouldn't we be? 'Cause of that shit I said back there?"

Rick still has trouble getting used to arguing with Negan and still being able to talk with him afterward; if it were Lori in Negan's place, Rick would be getting the silent treatment now.

Negan cuddles Rick closer. "That's why we're partners, so I can veto some of the crazy shit you come up with."

"You gonna veto our vacation?"

"Hell no. I'm countin' down the days." Negan grins, and his breath is minty fresh. "I'm gonna screw your brains out."

"I'll hold you to that," Rick says.


	24. Chapter 24

Their vacation begins the week before the kids start school. Rick's Mazda racks up miles on the three-hour drive down to the beach. When they arrive at the hotel, Rick and Negan's suite is a sight to behold. The room has multiple balcony views of the coastline to the north and east. There's a full kitchen, a dining room, and a living room with enough couches and chairs to seat five extra people. The view from the bedroom, though, is breathtaking; the serene ocean stretches on for miles, glistening like diamonds in the sun.

"Glenn must be in the hotel mafia to get us a room like this," says Rick.

"Or maybe I slipped him some cash for an upgrade," Negan says. "If we're gonna vacation, we ought'a do it in style."

Rick smiles like he's forgotten Negan is full of surprises. "I thought we had a talk about your tendency to go overboard."

"Wow, this place is awesome!" Carl says. He tosses his luggage on the king-size bed, as though claiming this room for himself.

Judith rushes up to the balcony doors and looks out, pressing her face against the glass. "Whoa…"

Negan gives Rick a challenging look. "What's that about going overboard?"

Rick's momentary grumpiness melts away underneath Negan's gleaming grin. He rolls his eyes and shrugs. "Fine, just don't trash the room like a cliché rock star."

"We'll only break the headboard," Negan murmurs at Rick's ear, and this elicits a whole new stage of blushing from Rick.

* * *

That night, when they head up to the rooftop bar, Rick learns that Negan has invited his bandmates to the hotel. Simon and Dwight are sitting at the cozy neon-lit bar, but when they see Negan they abandon their chairs to greet him with fistbumps and one-armed hugs. Dwight has brought along his wife Sherry, a petite brunette who hugs Negan and gives him a kiss on the cheek; Dwight does not seem bothered by this, but maybe he assumes Negan's relationship with Rick means he's no longer interested in women.

Negan introduces Rick to Sherry as his partner, which both delights and disappoints Rick. There isn't an appropriate word for what they are; 'boyfriend' feels too juvenile, but they aren't married yet, so they're not exactly husbands. 'Partners' will have to do for now.

"Where's the rest of you dicks?" Negan asks Simon as they sit at the bar.

"Jesus is on vacation in Europe with Aaron, and Eugene is, and I quote, 'uncomfortable in social situations.'"

"Sucks for them." Negan orders a hurricane cocktail from the bartender and nudges Rick with an elbow. "C'mon, drink up. I'm gonna need you good and sauced tonight."

"Do you order drinks based on songs you've written?" Rick asks, genuinely curious. The Saviors have a song titled "Hurricane," but the lyrics have nothing to do with alcohol (though they may have been written under the influence).

Simon and Dwight laugh. "No, but I think he drinks before he writes some of 'em," says Dwight. "Case in point."

Negan flips him off. "You are biting the hand that feeds, Dwighty-boy."

"What about 'Drunk'?" Rick posits, because that one's a hell of an insight into Negan's coping methods, though Rick hasn't seen too much of it since they've been together.

"Oh, shit!" Simon crows a laugh. "How'd I forget about that one?"

"Rick, stop bein' a prick and order something," Negan grumbles.

Rick opts for a Manhattan, because he's a classy motherfucker.

He'd been a little worried when he saw Negan's bandmates here; Rick is a hell of a lot more introverted than Negan, who seems fueled by interaction and socialization. But even when Rick helped Negan move almost a year ago, he felt slightly judged by the rest of the band. Sure, they all nodded and gave their approval, but Rick knew he wasn't truly accepted within their circle. To them, Negan was trying on bisexuality like a new pair of shoes, and Rick was the byproduct of this experimentation. But Rick has stuck around, and maybe the band has finally accepted him, or they never disliked him to begin with and Rick was just being paranoid.

Throughout the night, Simon, Dwight and Sherry seem enthralled with Rick, asking him questions about his past in Atlanta, and his job as a paranormal investigator.

"Holy shit! You hunt ghosts?" Simon blurts out. Whiskey sloshes over his knuckles as his hand holding his drink sways.

"We both do," Negan reminds him.

Simon ignores Negan. "What's the weirdest shit you've seen?"

"Well," Rick says, rubbing his chin, "there was that one time we fell into an alternate dimension looking for a missing girl." He tells them an abridged version of the events surrounding Sophia's rescue. Dwight, Simon, and Sherry listen with rapt attention. Negan works on his third drink of the night, and his eyelids have taken on that heaviness Rick knows all too well.

"It's so great you do cases like this," Sherry says. "And actually listen to people who've had these experiences. Usually when someone talks about being abducted by aliens or living in a haunted house, it just… ruins their life. No one believes them."

Rick nods. "That's one of the reasons I started doing it. This kind of stuff… No one believes it's real until it happens to them."

Negan makes a noise of agreement.

"How'd it happen to you?" Simon wonders.

"Don't be a dick," Negan interjects, as though trying to protect Rick from the pain of rehashing Lori's death.

But it's okay. Rick has told the story—or at least glossed over it—many times, enough that it doesn't rub his heart raw like sandpaper. "A wendigo killed my wife back in Georgia."

Simon's eyes bulge. "Shit, man. I am sorry."

Sherry and Dwight offer their condolences.

"I've learned to see the silver lining," Rick says. "Losing Lori ended up bringing me to Negan."

Rick wants to gush more, but Negan grins at him, bright and unrestrained, and the sight of it steals the words from Rick's head.

* * *

Later, after Simon, Dwight and Sherry have gone inside, Rick and Negan sit sprawled in chairs near the mesmerizing pool. The moon shimmers atop the Atlantic Ocean, and the pool glows cyan, reflecting blue light onto the planes of Negan's face. The air smells like chlorine and sea salt. Despite the presence of a few guests drinking at the bar, the serenity of the night makes Rick feel like he and Negan are the last remaning people on earth. There is an indescribable calmness to the night, splendiferous and transcendent, as though time has stopped.

Or maybe that's the whiskey talking.

"I wish every day could be like this," Rick says.

"Like what? Spent in a seriously awesome hotel? Because that can be arranged."

As much as Rick likes this place, there's something about the home they've built together that he wouldn't trade for the world. "No, I mean… It's calm. Easy. Just us and the people we care about."

Negan turns his head to look at Rick, cocking an eyebrow. "Meaning what? Shit, you said _I_ was drunk." His hand drops down to fetch the glass containing about a third of a cocktail. Negan tips the remainder of the fruity concoction into his mouth. "Which I'm not, fuck you very much."

"Touchy, aren't you?"

Negan sets down the empty glass. "You're the one being fake-deep, Grimes."

Rick exhales a tiny sigh. He's afraid of speaking candidly about this, because saying it out loud makes it real, and he isn't sure where to go from there.

"You and Carl," Rick starts, measuring his words, "you both think I'm gonna get myself killed hunting. And I used to think, fine, I wanna go down swinging. But after Sophia, what you and Daryl said… it makes a lot more sense to sit out, let someone else handle it…"

The reflection from the pool makes Negan's eyes glisten and shine, almost as though this revelation has brought him to tears. "You got someone else in mind?"

"No, but now that we met Daryl and Merle…" Rick shrugs. "Like you said, there's a lot of people out there who know about this stuff."

"So are you thinking about playing Professor X to a bunch of wanna-be ghostbusters?"

Rick chuckles. "Now there's an idea. You wanna be a part of it?"

"As much as I love bossing nerds around, I think you'd make a better teacher than me." Negan's still gazing at him. His face is too perfect for words; Rick is immediately taken back to the moment Negan first walked into his office, to that desire to have Negan's face between his thighs.

"Should we head down to the room?" Rick asks after a moment of staring at the midnight sky. They'd left Carl and Judith unaccompanied for their jaunt to the rooftop, since Carl wanted to stay in and Judith was already asleep.

"You know I'll be inside you as soon as we get through the door," Negan says. "I promised I'd screw your brains out on this trip, and I'm a man of my word."

Rick tries to fight the blush spreading on his cheeks. But he doesn't argue with that.

"Why don't you slow your roll a bit?" Negan says. "It's a beautiful goddamn night. Let's enjoy it."

Since when does Negan prefer stargazing over sex? Rick considers that the alcohol has, uh, _softened_ Negan considerably and he's holding out for a better performance. Wouldn't be the first time.

They're quiet for a while, basking in the night. Around them is the soft clink of glasses, the low chatter of the remaining guests on the rooftop, and the faint noise of the city twenty stories below.

"You really think I'd make a good husband?" Negan asks. His voice is so soft it takes Rick a moment to realize he's spoken.

Rick searches his memory for when he said that. It was after finding Sophia, on the ride home. It doesn't surprise him that Negan remembers. "Yeah."

Rick's been around long enough to know what comes next, but he's still taken aback when Negan grabs his hand and jams a ring onto Rick's third finger. "Well, put your money where your sweet, supple mouth is, you prick."

Rick stares at the ring, feeling a little like he's been pranked. He knew this was coming—the subject had been floating around a lot lately—but it's hard not to be shocked after a marriage proposal. He considers the amount of planning that has gone into this; Negan must have acquired the ring before their trip, and it's unknown how long he's been thinking about it.

"'Course I'll marry you," Rick says, and the look on Negan's face almost stops him from saying the next part. " _But_ there are stipulations."

"Name your price."

"Don't go overboard."

"How 'bout we just sign the papers and call it a done deal?"

"Take me now," Rick says, and he means it.

* * *

When they get back to the room, Negan makes good on his promise to screw Rick's brains out. The sex is quick and sloppy, with Negan clutching the headboard for leverage as he shoves in. Rick makes the hottest little noises, his face flat against the sheets as his hips grind back to meet Negan's thrusts.

"Don't worry, Pretty Ricky," Negan huffs, "you're up next." Rick groans a honey-smooth noise, like he's thinking about their second go-round already. Negan chuckles and teases a hand up Rick's thigh, finding his cock. His grasp makes Rick squirm. "You got any plans when it's your turn in the saddle?" His thumb grazes over the head of Rick's leaking cock, and Rick's hips shove back in a jolt of sensation.

Rick whimpers a graceless noise.

"C'mon, baby. Why don't you tell me what you're gonna do to me? Put that filthy brain to work. Get me goin'."

Rick grunts. "Shut up and fuck me."

"Now _that's_ what I like to hear!" Negan bears down on him, feverish now, until Rick's gasping and groaning and Negan has given him everything. Shaking, Negan slumps over the curve of Rick's back and kisses his damp shoulder. His hand covers Rick's own, the one bearing a small silver ring.

When it's Rick's turn, Negan's more than happy to let Rick slide between his legs and take what he wants. Negan grunts and swears with a grin, his heels pushing at Rick's ass, coaxing for more. "Shit, I know you can do better than that," he says. Every muscle quivers, twanging like guitar strings; Rick's buried all the way inside of him, and Negan's so wired he has to mentally backtrack to ensure he didn't snort a line of coke at some point during the night. "You gettin' soft on me, Grimes?"

Rick smirks and gives a little push; Negan bites his lip. "You tell me." Negan has a perfect view of the anti-possession tattoo on Rick's chest, its dark green tendrils of ink swirling over his heart. A sigil that connects both of them.

Negan's tempted to flip them over and ride Rick until the bed breaks. He wants to stroke his own dick, but he can't imagine taking his hands off Rick to do it. "Your dick's hard, but your technique is flaccid as fuck."

Rick drives into him, folding over Negan like he's about to kiss him. There's a feral glint in his eyes and, combined with the insistent pace of his hips, Negan can't remember the last time he was this turned on. "You want me to use you? Like you're just a willing hole for me to fuck?"

"Yes, yes, please, God, Rick," Negan begs, his nails scraping over Rick's back. He raises his hips off the mattress to grind his aching cock against the wall of Rick's stomach. "Fucking destroy me."

Rick closes his mouth over Negan's, his hips rolling and crashing, like he's doing his best to fulfill Negan's request but just doesn't have it in him. So Negan helps him along, rocking into his rhythm. Negan kisses him until it's too much, then he's biting at Rick's jaw, throat, anywhere his teeth can reach. He comes in a long stretch of sensation, an orgasm so deep and strong Negan thinks it might tear him apart. He lies there on the mattress, fucked hollow, and Rick follows soon after.

Negan buries his nose in Rick's hair, breathing in the familiar musk of him. It's a nice, tranquil moment, but Rick has to ruin it with his sass: "You sure _I'm_ the noisy one?"

"Never said I wasn't."

"You said I beg for your cock."

Negan does remember saying that. He chuckles to himself. "Hard to dispute when you said 'shut up and fuck me' just a couple minutes ago."

"Nah, you were beggin' a lot more than I was."

"Because I am a filthy slut for that mag-fucking-nificent dick of yours. I'm not ashamed to admit it."

Rick smiles and rolls off of Negan so they're lying side by side. "Wonder what your fans would say about that." His hand falls into Negan's lap, fingers lazily stroking his thigh.

"Oh, we are gonna piss off a whole fuck-ton of people with this," Negan says, finding the ring on Rick's hand.

"You promised you wouldn't make it a big deal."

"I won't, but people'll find out. They found out where Lucille and Emily are buried."

"Yeah? You never told me about that."

Negan shrugs. "Guess it slipped my mind."

Rick leans his head on Negan's shoulder, his fingers still tracing tantalizing swirls over Negan's bare thigh. "Are you worried?"

"Fuck no," Negan says with a snort of amusement. "I'll drop those fuckers like dead weights. These are the same stick-in-the-mud douchebags who think 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' qualifies as rap." Most of those fans probably jumped ship back when the Saviors stopped being AC/DC soundalikes.

Rick laughs. "As long as I'm not causing trouble for you."

"Nah, fuck 'em." Negan lifts his middle finger to the ceiling. "You're worth it."

* * *

The next morning, the four of them are eating breakfast at the hotel buffet, waiting for Glenn and Maggie to join them. "Dude, you guys found the Colossal Titan?" Carl exclaims, handing his phone across the table to Rick.

Rick has no idea what Carl's talking about. Something about anime? He looks at the screen, reads the news article headline, and his heart momentarily comes to a halt:

 **Strange Creature Discovered in National Park**

The article goes on to explain how Daryl and Merle Dixon, in their search for a missing girl (Sophia remains anonymous, probably upon the request of her parents), hunted and killed an unknown, enormous creature in Shenandoah National Park. The monster is described as "lanky and unnatural, its appearance unlike anything known to zoologists." Accompanying the article is a photograph of the monster laid out on what looks like a giant gurney. The photo is slightly blurry and grainy, as though taken on a cell phone, but Rick recognizes the creature that almost killed them.

"Guess that makes me and your dad the Survey Corps," Negan says to Carl with a wry grin. He motions for the phone, and Rick hands it over. Negan scans through the article. When he's finished, he says, "It's startin' to hit the fan, Rick. You're about to get a whole lot busier."

Rick wants to believe the world at large will see this revelation as just another hoax, but he knows better. Because that thing exists. And it's not as though Daryl and Merle have some sort of non-disclosure agreement regarding the existence of cryptids; one or both of them might have snapped a couple photos of the creature as insurance or a ratings boost.

The bigger question is this: what happened to the monster's corpse?


	25. Chapter 25

They marry in September on Rick's birthday. The date is the only extravagance Negan takes for the occasion, which Rick appreciates. The whole affair is strikingly formal, a ritual of flipping papers and signing on lines pointed to by the notary, like they're taking out a loan or buying a house. Rick gives Negan a modest silver ring while they're parked in their driveway.

"It's only fair," Rick says, and Negan agrees.

He notices some etching on the band. Lifting the ring closer, he can read the inscription: _non timebo mala._

"I will fear no evil," Rick translates, as though Negan doesn't know basic Latin from his time studying spells and ancient texts. It's also the inscription on the barrel of Rick's Colt Python.

Negan grins at him. "Now that just ain't fair, Rick, one-upping me like this. Lucky for you, I've got a present for ya."

That night, Negan presents Rick with the only thing he has to give: his music. He has put together a new song for this momentous occasion, and he's a little worried Rick might see this as a cheapskate rock star's way out of gift-giving. But Rick sits beside Negan on the bed and watches him with reverence, like he's something sacred. And maybe now, Negan can believe it.

 _I held on too tight,_

 _I must've tried a million times,_

 _To do it right, put on a show,_

 _Now I'm letting go,_

 _The real prize don't have a price,_

 _But when they get it, they just forget it,_

 _Silver and gold, the finer things won't fill up your soul,_

 _Now I see that love's all we need,_

 _The rest don't mean shit 'cause it won't make you stay,_

 _Hold me and tell me you won't go away,_

 _I need to feel it and know that it's real,_

 _But every time I hesitate,_

 _And I don't know which way to go,_

 _That's when you say,_

" _Your love is enough,"_

 _Because of you, I'm not alone,_

 _I'm finally home,_

 _I'll hold you close and I won't go away,_

 _Cover the scars and the wounds that won't heal,_

' _Cause every time you hesitate,_

 _And you don't know the way to go,_

 _I will show you,_

 _Your love is enough._

* * *

The following day, Negan can't resist his extravagant nature. He records a minute and a half of "Enough" in the basement studio and posts it to his Instagram. He does not mention marriage, but the ring finger of his hand working the fretboard is hard to miss; hardcore fans take notice, since he wasn't wearing a ring during the tour or in the photos he's posted since opening the account. Comments flood in, containing speculation and preemptive congratulations, but Negan pays them little mind. As he has written, Rick's love is enough. His happiness does not depend on the acceptance of strangers: just the few select people he cares about. This time around, he has chosen people who, like Lucille, willingly give back. On the good days—of which he has quite a few lately—Negan wants for nothing.

* * *

About a week later, Carl awakens in the middle of the night to an unusual sound: a deep rumble, as though a motorcycle or a vehicle with a loud engine has driven by. On occasions when Carl rides along with Negan and one of these noisy cars passes them, Negan will say something to the effect of, "sorry about your dick!" because he claims only men with micro-penises feel the need to soup up their engines like that. Once, when Carl replied with, "is that why you talk about yours all the time?" Negan laughed and said, "Why don't you ask your dad?"

Carl did not, in fact, ask his father anything regarding the size of Negan's cock. No thanks. He pretends his parents are asexual, though their bedroom lies on the other side of Carl's wall. He _hears things_ , and it haunts him.

But according to the too-bright lock screen of his phone, it's three in the morning, and generally there are no obnoxiously loud vehicles on their street. So what the hell is one doing here at this hour?

The rumbling is a constant presence outside Carl's bedroom window. He sneaks out of bed and inches back the curtains with his finger. An offwhite SUV lingers in front of the Grimes' house. The windows are tinted dark enough that Carl can't see who's driving, but he doesn't recognize the car. He's lived on this street long enough to know his neighbors' cars. He checks the windshield for a driving service decal, which might explain why a strange car is idling outside of his house at 3 a.m. He doesn't see one.

Maybe it's a client looking for Rick and Negan. Two problems with that theory. One, if the case were a paranormal emergency, Rick and Negan wouldn't be asleep in the next room. They'd be out on the case right now. Two, how would the client have found Rick's home address? Carl supposes it's not impossible, but it does seem unlikely.

Carl peeks out again. The SUV is still there, like its driver is waiting for someone. Carl feels waves of malevolence coming from that car, or, more accurately, from the driver within. He leaves his bedroom and opens his parents' door, bracing himself for an unpleasant and possibly scarring sight.

Rick and Negan are asleep and clothed, at least from the waist up. They're snuggled against each other like kittens, which Carl might find cute if they weren't his parents.

"Dad," Carl whispers into the quiet. "There's someone outside."

Rick is the first to rise, popping up like bread out of a toaster. "What's goin' on?"

"Come look," Carl says, and he hears Rick murmur something to Negan as he leaves the room. "He's just parked out front." Carl leads Rick toward his bedroom window. As soon as Carl peels the curtain back, the offwhite SUV rolls away, as though the driver knows he's been caught. "Crap." Carl pushes aside the curtain and moves to give Rick a better view. "He must've seen us."

Rick makes a contemplative noise in his throat. "You see him again, you let me know."

"Yeah. Sorry I woke you up."

"Don't be. You're looking out for us."

* * *

A few days pass, and Judith comes down with the flu. Negan volunteered to help her recuperate, since Rick had done so the day before.

"I'll stay home with her," Negan said that morning, pressed against Rick's back while Rick brewed his morning coffee. "My immune system is _rock solid_." To emphasize the point, Negan rocked his hips forward, pressing his dick against Rick's ass.

Rick choked a noise of surprise.

Carl's choking was less surprise and more in the area of disgust. He was sitting at the dining table, seated as far away from his sister as possible to lessen the chance of catching her germs. Judith groggily spooned Lucky Charms into her mouth. "Can you not?" Carl said, grimacing at his parents' display of affection. "Some of us are trying to eat."

"Well, some of us are tryin' to score with your dad," Negan said, earning a horrified "ugh!" sound from Carl.

Rick turned to face Negan, his eyes bright and his smile spreading. "Alright, Mr. Rock Solid"—he gave Negan's denim-clad crotch a playful pat—"the job's yours."

"Careful, Rick," Negan said, his gaze darting to where Rick's hand had been moments ago. "You get that thing talking, and it won't shut up."

"Wouldn't want that," Rick teased as he turned back to the coffee maker.

From the table, Carl moaned, "Oh my God, you guys are so embarrassing," into his hands.

Rick took his mug and stirred in some milk. "I guess that means you're off the hook for the follow-up on the Ford case."

 _Thank fuck,_ Negan thought, because standard P.I. work is boring as shit.

Which is why Negan spends the afternoon catering to Judith's beck and call when she's not asleep from the medicine. Around mid-afternoon Judith calls for him, her tiny voice carrying through the house, and Negan jogs up the stairs, appearing in her bedroom doorway like a faithful butler.

"You rang, darlin'?" Negan says.

"I need more tissues." Judith waves a hand at him, which is currently stuck inside an empty Kleenex box—the same box that had been unopened this morning. The lower half of her bed and the floor are littered with discarded white puffs of tissue, her plastic pink garbage bin overflowing with them. She could easily have gone down the hall to the bathroom, raided the cabinets under the sink for extra rolls of toilet paper, but Negan told her to stay in bed while she's sick.

"You sure do," Negan says. "You are Queen of Snot Mountain."

Judith pouts, her lower lip sticking out. "I don't wanna be."

"It's not every day you get to be royalty," Negan says. He kneels down at her bedside to gather up the tissue debris, stuffing handfuls into the small trash bin. "When you're queen, you get your own butler." Yes, he's a regular Mr. Belvedere, and Negan is over the moon to bring this kid extra tissues or a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup. He never knew how much he wanted to be a dad until he lost Emily, and that desire fermented and hardened in his chest, a tight ball of unfulfillment that dissolved like an antacid when Rick invited him in to the family.

Judith drops the empty tissue box into the trash. Her tiny nose is a chapped shade of red, exhaustion plain on her face. "How long 'til I get better?"

Judith has only been sick for two days, but that must seem like a lifetime to her. Bed rest is blasphemy to a six-year-old.

"Give it a couple days, kiddo. The medicine takes a while to work. But if I were you, I'd be real happy I didn't have to go to school."

"But I like school," Judith protests.

Negan makes a face. "You are such a nerd."

"So? Iron Man is a nerd. And so is Bruce Banner before he turns into the Hulk."

"They sure are. Brainy kids like you are gonna grow up to rule the world. Or create the next Facebook. Same difference." Negan grabs the trash bin, now neatly stuffed with debris. "I'll be back with more tissues. And I think it's about time for your next dose of medicine."

Judith frowns in disgust. "It's gross."

"Tell me about it. You'd think somebody would've figured out how to make it taste good." Negan shakes his head, as though this is some great disappointment. "I'd love to be a pal and do NyQuil shots with you, but I gotta take care of things around here."

"Okay," Judith groans.

Negan takes Judith's trash bin downstairs and dumps its contents into the main garbage in the kitchen. He checks the clock on the microwave. Almost 2 p.m. He gave Judith her last dose of medicine around eight, just after breakfast. Almost six hours. He ought to give her an afternoon snack to make the syrup go down easier.

As Negan rummages through the cabinets, searching for the cup of microwaveable mac and cheese he swears he saw in here this morning, a knock sounds on the front door.

"It's open, Maggie," Negan calls, figuring it's her. She has made a habit of dropping in to borrow packages of baby wipes; Rick's sometimes irrational Costco purchases have left them with a surplus of random household items stored in the hall closet.

The front door opens and shuts. Negan's still digging through the cabinet, pushing aside boxes of minute rice and Kraft dinners, soup and bean cans, Carl's Pop-Tarts, Judith's cheese crackers. Negan's pantry was never so goddamn full before he moved in with Rick. "Just take the whole damn pallet," he says. "Not that I don't enjoy the pleasure of your company, but until your boy learns basic table manners, you're gonna go through those things like crazy."

Maggie doesn't answer, which strikes Negan as odd. Maybe she's in a sour mood.

"Cat got your tongue?" Negan says, turning around to look at her.

It's not Maggie standing in the kitchen, but a stranger. A man. He's about Negan's height, his hair a muddy brown beginning to gray at the temples. His face is unusual, with a roundness commonly seen in infants, though crow's feet and the creases around his mouth imply his age. His eyes seem to be perpetually squinting, as though staring into the sun or channeling a killer Clint Eastwood impersonation. He's wearing a dark blue shirt and black jeans, almost like something Rick would wear.

But most of all, the tiny smile on the man's equally tiny mouth fills Negan with a disturbing sense of dread.

"Well, aren't you freaky as shit, sneaking up on me like that!" Negan says. "Who the fuck are you?"

"My name is Philip Blake. I'm your biggest fan." The man reaches into the waistband of his jeans, his hand disappearing behind him, and—in a move Negan has seen Rick perform dozens of times—pulls out a pistol.


	26. Chapter 26

_You've certainly stepped in some shit today,_ Negan thinks, staring into the black hole of the gun barrel. It reminds him of the portal he fell through in the park, an endless journey into darkness.

"What do you want?" Negan says in a strengthless croak.

"I want you to see me," says the man—Philip Blake. "I'm your biggest fan. You owe me that much, don't you think?"

"I'll give you whatever you want."

A smile crawls onto Philip's face like a vine. "Yes, Negan, you will. I'll see to that. You give me what I'm owed, and everybody goes home happy."

Negan turns his head, hoping to sneak a glance down the hallway, praying like hell Judith isn't standing there on the staircase. She should not see this. _Please please whatever you do, don't hurt her, please, oh God…_

"You see, we've met before. I'm disappointed you don't remember," Philip tells him, moving closer, the gun still pointed at the center of Negan's chest; at this distance, he won't miss, even if he has Stormtrooper aim. "Your show in Philly. June 25th. You played a four-song encore, ending with 'Love You to Death.' Now that… is a hell of a song. We met backstage after the show. You shook my hand and autographed the concert poster I brought—it was from Conquer, your 20th anniversary tour."

Negan does a desperate search for this encounter in his brain, but Philip has just described every single fan meeting Negan has ever been a part of. To Negan, they are all the same, interchangeable, varying only occasionally when a gorgeous woman asks Negan to sign some tantalizing part of her anatomy. He has seen so many faces they begin to blur into one bland visage.

"I can see that moment didn't mean much to you," Philip continues, "but it meant the world to me. I've been listening to your music since your debut. And I've made damn sure to attend at least one of your concerts each tour. But for this last one, I made it to Philly, Charlotte, and Atlanta. Now, over the years, I'm sure if you added it all up—the tickets, the lodging, the travel expenses, the merchandise, not to mention the albums—you'd be looking at a pretty big number. Too big, I think, all things considered. But humans, flawed as we are, don't like to give up, especially when we've invested a whole lot of time and money. You're familiar with the sunk cost fallacy—or the Concorde fallacy, since we're talking about commitment here."

Negan is very well acquainted with this; his marriage to the Bitch was founded on it.

"Why, you even wrote a song about it." Philip smiles, and his expression is oddly serene. "'Fool in the Rain.'"

Negan's cell phone, lying forgotten on the kitchen island, blasts his ringtone—the EDM remix of "Party"—from its tinny speakers. Philip starts, distracted by the sound, and here is Negan's moment to do something, but he's paralyzed by the threat of a bullet in the chest, and the moment is gone as quickly as it arrived. Then a black look spreads over Philip's face.

Rick. Rick is calling him. If Negan could reach that phone… This is the one situation where his iPhone's Siri app would actually be useful, but of course he had to disable it like an idiot who doesn't plan ahead for shit like this.

"You ruined it," Philip snarls at him. He closes the distance between them and jams the pistol—nickel finish with a wood grip—into Negan's ribs. Negan chokes out a whimper, but it's muddied under the all-treble burst of the music. "How could you desecrate your music like that, turn it into dance club garbage?"

Negan wants to put the blame on Eugene, because the remix album had been Eugene's pet project from the get-go. But he can't make a sound.

"And yes, it did occur to me that you cobbled that trash together to fulfill your contract. I know a little bit about the business. And maybe I could forgive that—we've all got obligations—but then why is it your ringtone? You actually like that shit? I remember the first time I heard that song—the _real_ one. It was at a party, of course, where I met the woman who later became my wife and the mother of my child. And you just took a huge shit all over it."

The words pour out of Negan's mouth, rapid and urgent. "It's not about you. I wanted to do something different. Change shit up, y'know? That's what it's all about. You try new things, and sometimes they don't work, but if Jimmy Page never dragged that violin bow over his guitar strings, we wouldn't have Zeppelin."

 _It was never about you,_ Negan wants to say. _It's not about any of you. Artists, at our core, are selfish motherfuckers._

Rage blooms in Philip's eyes. His grip on the gun tightens, but his finger does not rest on the trigger. Negan wonders if Philip will shoot him, or if the gun is merely a bargaining tool. "No excuses," Philip growls. "You don't get to change it. It's not yours anymore. Once you put it out there, it's ours. And you don't get to take that away."

Negan closes his mouth, realizing the breadth and complexity of Philip's insanity.

"Is that why you're with Rick?" Philip asks, changing gears so suddenly Negan's taken aback. "Because he's a brainless sycophant who'll eat up everything you put out?"

Rick actually dislikes the remixes, though he's not as vitriolic about them as Philip. "Not my thing, but you're havin' fun," Rick had said after Negan made him listen to the album, and Negan set the ringtone to mess with him, just another inside joke in their marriage.

But something else snags on Negan's thoughts like a fishhook.

"How do you know about Rick?"

Philip gives him that warm smile again, the anger mostly gone from his face. "Because I'm a clever man, Negan. I saw that Instagram video you posted a couple weeks back. You had a wedding ring on your finger. A ring that wasn't there before." He reaches down, never taking his hand off the gun, and lifts Negan's ring-clad hand into view. His lips draw back from his teeth at the sight. "So I did some digging. Y'see, marriage licenses are public record, and with the right know-how and a couple bucks, you can find out just about anything. I knew you live in Virginia, so narrowing things down by state was easy. Then it's just a matter of searching your name and seeing what comes up. Lucky for me, you've got a pretty uncommon name."

Negan's throat is dry, his heart hammering.

"And if you think it wasn't just as easy to find out about Mr. Rick Grimes, well, I know you're not stupid, Negan. Misguided, sure, but not stupid."

"If you know about Rick, you know he used to be a cop."

"Sheriff," Philip corrects, and this gets fury boiling in Negan's stomach, because that's another in-joke between himself and Rick. This unhinged lunatic doesn't get to be part of it. "And yes, I know. Out of King County, Georgia. Now you two chase ghosts." Philip shakes his head, like a teacher disenchanted with a favorite pupil. "See, this is why you need me, Negan."

Negan hates the way Philip says his name, as though they're friends all of a sudden.

"I know you rich, good-looking people don't reach beyond your inner circle," Philip continues. "But if you don't look past what's in front of you, you're bound to miss out." He has pushed up the hem of Negan's t-shirt with the pistol, and Negan feels the cold barrel against his skin. "I think Rick wants a sugar daddy. You've got the money, and he needs another set of eyes looking out for his kids. Lucky for him, you've wanted to be a dad for a long time. Funny how things work out." Philip leans in, the outrush of his breath hot on Negan's face; Negan expects it to be foul, but the man's breath is minty fresh. "You've got a bad habit of falling for all the wrong people. All they've ever done is use you. You saw it with the Bitch. You'll see it here."

Judith's tiny voice cuts through the quiet house: "Negan, did you forget about me?" She draws out his name the way kids do when they want attention, and the sound of it shreds Negan's heart like razorblades.

Philip looks to the hallway where Judith's voice originated, like he's startled that she's in the house. This would be a perfect opportunity for Negan to strike, but the pistol is pressed right between two of his ribs, and he doesn't want to chance it. Not with Judith so close.

"No, darlin'," Negan calls, keeping the fear out of his voice. "Slow your roll a sec." He looks at Philip, lowers his voice. "You touch her, and I'll fucking kill you."

Philip chuckles; Negan is no more threatening to him than a kitten would be. "Don't be absurd. I'm not a monster. I have a daughter myself." Negan's skin crawls at the thought. "But if you don't behave, I'll be forced to shoot your little girl. Now, I certainly won't take pleasure in it, and I'll make it quick and easy for her, but none of us want that, Negan. Least of all that child up there."

"Negan!" Judith whines again. "Can I come down?" She must be at the top of the stairs; he'd told her to stay in bed unless absolutely necessary.

Negan looks at Philip, as though trying to communicate with him telepathically. If Negan doesn't call to her, she'll come down here, and when she does… _Please let me talk to her, tell her to stay up there just a bit longer…_

Philip moves into the mouth of the hallway. He keeps his arm holding the gun outstretched and trained on Negan, just out of sight from Judith if she were to stand at the top of the stairs.

"Why don't you come on down here, sweet pea?" Philip calls to her in a hideous coaxing voice.

Negan surveys his surroundings for a weapon, anything he can easily grab to disarm Philip, or at least put a hurt on him. There are knives in the drawer, but could Negan open the drawer without earning Philip's attention? Doubtful. There are no formidable weapons out in the open; why would there be, in a house with children? Both Rick and Negan know better than to leave sharp or potentially dangerous objects lying around for Judith to stumble upon, or for Carl to get his hands on if he snaps and decides to murder Negan in the night.

What, then, is the smartest move here?

Philip said if Negan behaves and gives him "what he's owed," everything will go smoothly. While Negan has no concrete reason to believe Philip isn't lying, he thinks the gun shoved in his face speaks for itself. The gun is a thick, veiny show of force to keep Negan in line. Philip is, supposedly, Negan's biggest fan; he will want Negan alive. At least until he gets what he wants. But to Philip, Judith is collateral. As willing as Negan might be to risk his own hide, he would never risk hers. If he's reckless, if he tries to be Mr. Big Fucking Action Hero, he could get her killed.

"You said not to use my shirt, but you were s'posed to bring me more Kleenex, remember?" Judith says. Her footsteps descend the stairs.

 _No no baby don't come down here run go to your room and break the window and find Maggie or Rosita or hell even Pete Anderson a reckless violent moron might be helpful here—_

"Slow down there, little missy," Philip tells her. Negan looks into the black eye of the gun, his view of Judith obscured by the kitchen wall. "What's the hurry?"

Judith sniffles. "Where's Negan?"

"Negan? Don't be rude. Say hello." Philip beckons him closer with his free hand.

 _Come closer to the immediate threat of my gun,_ in other words.

Negan obeys, because what choice does he have? He moves past the fridge and into the hallway. "Hey, kiddo. I didn't forget about you." The pistol barrel pokes Negan in the back as Philip hides the gun; Negan forces himself not to flinch. "What do you need?"

"You were s'posed to bring me some Kleenex."

"Shit, you're right," Negan says, hoping his swearing might be a subtle hint to her that something is wrong. Since moving in with Rick, Negan has curbed his profanity in front of her—or at least made a decent effort to do so.

"Why don't you get those for her, Negan?" Philip says, jabbing the gun at Negan's spine again. A reminder not to try anything.

Philip keeps the gun hidden as Negan fetches the tissues. There are two boxes of Kleenex on the kitchen counter, left there for easy access along with the bottle of children's cough syrup.

Philip tells Judith, "I'm Philip. I just moved in down the street. I have a daughter about your age, too. Her name's Penny. What are you doing home on a school day?"

"I'm sick," Judith says. "And Negan was s'posed to bring me some more medicine, but it's yucky and I hate it." Judith's voice holds no hints that she might be questioning this man's presence in her home. It says, _Sure, mister, you're the grown-up._ Judith lives with her two bad-ass dads who fight monsters; she's never called her safety into question.

"Here you go, darlin'," Negan says to Judith as he hands over the Kleenex.

Judith takes the box in both hands.

"Now why don't you run on back upstairs?" Philip says to her. "Negan will be up to give you your medicine in about, oh, ten minutes. And it may be yucky, but sometimes things that are good for you are hard to swallow, but they'll help you get better, okay? Now go on."

Judith grumbles in defeat and heads upstairs. Negan watches her disappear down the hall into her bedroom.

 _Ten minutes? Clock's ticking. Better figure something out fast, because your life—or hers—literally depends on it._

From the island, Negan's phone chirps, and he recognizes that sound. It's a text from Rick. After calling and getting no answer, Rick must have decided to try again. Would the lack of response from Negan worry Rick? He wouldn't bet on it. Enough time hasn't passed to warrant concern; according to the digital clock on the microwave, only a few short minutes have elapsed since Rick's call, though to Negan it feels like a lifetime.

The sound draws Philip over to the kitchen island. He stands there, looking at the phone, and whatever he sees on the screen must upset him. Hard creases of displeasure form around his mouth. But what frightens Negan most is the way Philip's hand clenches around the grip of the pistol. Like he's debating whether or not to use it.

After a moment, Philip turns to him and says, "It's time, Negan."


	27. Chapter 27

Negan's mind spins and lurches, trying to make sense of what he's heard. "Time for what? You gonna kill me now?"

"Negan, killing you is the last thing I want to do," Philip says. "Truth is, I need you alive. None of what I have planned for us works if you're dead."

 _Us? Does he think we're going to flounce off into the sunset together and live happily ever after?_

Negan scans the kitchen island for anything he can use as a weapon. He sees his cell phone, some plastic serving utensils in a vase, a notepad for grocery lists… Nothing sharp or blunt enough to do the trick. But Negan knows even if there were a formidable tool here, he would be dead as soon as he made the move to grab it.

Philip pokes the pistol into Negan's stomach. "Now why don't you give me the grand tour? Show me where the magic happens." Another jab with the gun. "Upstairs."

Negan doesn't see any other moves on the board here. He takes the stairs one at a time, a shaky hand clutching the banister. Negan pauses at the top of the stairs. Part of him is unsure where Philip wants him to go. The other part knows _._

The pistol pokes Negan in the back, almost caressing his spine. "Go on and make a right turn," Philip murmurs.

Judith and Carl's bedrooms are on the left. Rick and Negan's is on the right.

Negan wills himself to move, in the grip of the greatest terror he has ever known. But somewhere deep within him, he is grateful Philip hasn't chosen to hurt Judith yet. _Do whatever the fuck you want to me, but leave her alone_. He imagines Rick coming home to find Negan dead in their bedroom with his brains splattered on the walls like paint. Imagines Rick rushing into Judith's room to find her with wet eyes and a runny nose but very much alive and unharmed. The relief Rick would feel in that moment…

The bedroom door shuts behind Negan with a click. Sweat and tears mingle on his cheeks. The pistol is ever-present at Negan's back, and Philip places his free hand on Negan's shoulder. "Now don't get the wrong idea about this," he says in a soothing voice, the way a doctor might warn you about a little pressure before jabbing a needle the size of an elephant's tusk into your arm. "I care about you, Negan, and it's important to me that this is something you want, too. I would never do such a thing without your permission."

Negan is surprised to hear himself laugh. It's a shaky sound, spurred by the audacity of Philip's statement. _Permission given with a gun to my back isn't really permission, is it?_

"I'll use lube, of course," Philip continues. "I'm not a barbarian. What's the point of sex if all parties involved don't enjoy it?" His fingers caress the side of Negan's neck; Negan flinches. "What do you say, Negan? Will you let me show you how much I love you? I've waited a long time for this."

"I say no, and you shoot my kid. Doesn't seem like much of a choice."

"Now that's not true," Philip says with an edge of offense. "You're allowed to say no, of course, but that will make me angry. And you don't want to do that. I'm not myself when I get mad."

Another nervous laugh bubbles out of Negan. _Is this guy for real?_

"I'm liable to be unkind, and that's no way to start off this thing between us. But make no mistake: I will take what I'm owed. Whether it's a pleasant experience or not is up to you."

Negan inhales a deep breath. _Say yes, and it will be over and done with in one minute. Limp-dicked pricks like him are all talk and no cock. He'll probably blow his load before he even gets it out of his pants. Just lie back and cooperate, make him feel like a man, and everything will work out._

The resurgence of that cowardly inner voice, the one he had been so familiar with during his first marriage, fills Negan with a mix of grief and rage. He thought Lucille had banished that voice, that inner sense of unworthiness, his tendency to become a doormat for fear of more abuse or, worse, ending up alone. And, to some degree, she _had_ banished it, or at least confined it to a lock-box in the dusty attic of his brain; Rick never bothered even venturing up to that attic. He never made Negan feel like each day he had to audition for Rick's love as though every morning wiped the slate of their relationship clean.

But Philip found the key and unleashed the voice, and it's surfaced like a sea monster, wrapping slimy tendrils around Negan and squeezing him dry.

"Just let me be sweet to you," Philip says, his breath hot on the back of Negan's neck. The sensation is terrifying and strangely pleasurable, and a snatch of his own music occurs to him, lyrics he wrote about Rick:

 _You got me caught up on the feelin',_

 _When I can feel you breathin' on my neck,_

 _Don't let me go._

This unwanted association triggers a violent rejection from Negan. His head snaps back. The roundest and hardest part of his skull crashes into the delicate features of Philip's face. Negan hears a grunt and a crunching sound like beetles being stepped on. He pivots and swings a punch that lands on the side of Philip's jaw.

 _The gun dumbass go for the gun while you have the chance and blow this motherfucker away—_

The pistol fires. The sound is a cannon blast in the quiet room, too close to Negan's ear, and _oh you motherfucker if you blew out my eardrum—_

A hot slice of pain cuts through his left arm. The pain is a living thing, thumping and throbbing in time with his heartbeat. Hot and tacky blood soaks the sleeve of his t-shirt.

 _He actually fucking shot me…_

Philip rests the muzzle under the fleshy part of Negan's chin. The smell of gunpowder hangs in the air. Philip's finger curls around the trigger. "Door number two, then?" Philip snarls. Blood sheets down his face from the faucet of his nostrils. The bridge of his nose begins to deepen into a dark bruised red color. His blue eyes hold a conscious evil, and Negan expects to see them turn black like a demon's.

 _Good going, fucknuts,_ that malicious inner voice sneers at him. _You should have just said yes and let him have you. What's the big deal? You take it in the ass for Rick all the goddamn time. But you're in for it now, you sorry shit, and you've got no one to blame but yourself._

"Well, then we'll do it your way," Philip says, advancing on him. He has the muzzle pressed against Negan's throat now. "I should have figured you'd like it rough." Negan backs up. The backs of his knees bump against the foot of the bed. A bead of sweat trickles down his neck. The dark grey sleeve of his t-shirt is a muddy red, but blood isn't spurting out in gushes. Maybe he got lucky and it's only a flesh wound.

Doesn't stop the hot spikes of fire bursting through his arm.

"You crazy asshole…"

Another jab with the gun, and Negan stumbles backward onto the bed. "Now that isn't fucking fair," Philip says. "All I ever did for you is spend my hard-earned money on your records, and take time out of my life to go to your concerts, and root for you in the divorce, and send flowers when Lucille and your baby died. I _supported_ you. Is that crazy? No, what's crazy is you marrying a hanger-on nobody like Rick. I bet he didn't even know who you were when he met you. Not a goddamn clue." Philip scoffs. "What's crazy is marrying a fucking ghost hunter and then becoming one yourself. You're both nuts, but he made you that way. I can see it. I'll put some sense into you, yes, indeed."

 _And a couple other things while you're at it, won't you?_

Another voice, an achingly sweet, familiar voice Negan thought he'd never hear again speaks up: _Let him think the fight's gone out of you. He wants you for himself, so play your part, just long enough until he lets his guard down—and he will. When he shoots his squirt, you make his fucking carotid squirt. With blood. Because you'll tear his throat out._

God fucking bless Lucille. He knows the voice doesn't really belong to her, but it's perfectly in line with what she would say if she were here in spirit. If he and Rick hadn't torched her body, she would be a ghost in this room with him.

"Take those off," Philip says, pointing to Negan's jeans with his gun.

And that's when Negan checks out, his brain mercifully disconnecting him from the present, like pulling the plug on a television. His body operates on auto-pilot, and Negan obeys Philip's commands, hears the rough and aroused insistence in his voice. But it's as though Negan is underwater, and all the sounds and sights of the real world are vague, blurry things. He is in a curious blank place reserved for those whose terror and shock have engulfed them. And this is just fine with Negan. The gunshot wound gives him something else to focus on, the throbbing gristle in his arm that slows down the humiliating process of undressing.

Negan falls into the warm embrace of a memory: his vacation with Lucille. Her lithe, tanned body in that killer black swimsuit. The way her hair smelled like the ocean after a swim. The sounds she made when he put his mouth on her. The drag of her fingernails down his back. The smooth glide of her thighs around his hips—

Something hard presses between his legs, rigid and insistent, and the sensation makes Negan's body jerk in an attempt to escape it.

 _Remember the private villa, the azure water, the coy look on Lucille's face when she snaked her bare foot up your leg and to your dick underneath the table—_

The hard press quickly becomes a dark burning, a stubborn intrusion fighting his body's instinct to clamp down and force it out. There is lubrication—there's that much to be grateful for—but no prep, no arousal that will allow for his body to open and accept this invasion.

"Come on, God damn it," Philip grunts. Negan is almost certain he'll have a permanent imprint of the pistol muzzle on his temple with the way it's jammed against his head. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."

"Excuse the shit out of me for not relaxing when there's a gun pointed at my fucking head," Negan hears himself say.

 _Don't mouth off,_ a voice warns him, and it's Rick this time.

 _Fucking hell,_ Negan thinks, _we could start a band with all these goddamn voices. Where'd you assholes come from?_

 _Let him think he's in control_ , Rick tells him. _That's all he wants. Make him think you're his. He'll let down his guard. Then you make your move._

Lucille says, _Listen to your hubby. He's pretty smart. Nice work, by the way. You could've done a lot worse._

 _Case in fucking point_ , Negan thinks before another jolt of pain brings him back to the present, then he considers the possibility that he has gone completely mad. Surely hearing voices in your head—even though they're only facsimilies of what his loved ones might say to him—can't be a sign of anything but a fractured mind. But would a break from reality be so bad in this situation? No, Negan thinks it's a fucking blessing not to be wholly present here, to hear Lucille and Rick and even his spineless younger self volleying back and forth in his head.

Negan registers the press of the gun into his temple, then there's a blast of pain down below coupled with a fullness that makes him squeak out a loose, glassy whisper.

"There we go," Philip says with perverse satisfaction, and Negan screws his eyes shut, trying to find that calm oasis of numbness where he can disappear, but like a true oasis it's never around when you need one. "Now, you just relax…" Philip creaks in and out of him, and Negan does his best to lie perfectly still, except his entire body is quivering from the effort. And, he fears, from arousal. For the extra shit topping on this shit sandwich, whatever clumsy thing Philip's doing down there is making Negan's dick hard.

 _Fuck you body you traitorous fuck you don't get to do that_

Philip notices that Negan's cock, moments ago curled up and asleep in its thatch of dark hair, is now half-hard. Philip's small lips stretch into a leering grin, and he wraps his free hand around it as though Negan's cock is a gear-shift. Negan squirms, needing to be away from this, to dive into a deep, dark hole where none of this can reach him. "See? It's not so bad. I do believe you're liking this," Philip says, squeezing him, and Negan is transported back to the moment when Rick first touched him this way.

 _Sense memory is stone-cold bitch._

"I can fuck you better than him. 'Cause he doesn't really love you. Not like I do."

Negan turns his head on the pillow in an effort to escape Philip's dry and rapid breathing. Rick's journal and pen lie on the bedside table from the night before. It's almost incomprehensible to think not even twenty-four hours ago Negan was cozied up to Rick in this bed, arm curled around his shoulders as Rick scribbled down notes.

 _What a difference a day makes._

The pen. Could Negan do something with that? From his position on the bed, the pen is within arm's reach—the arm, thank God, not currently bleeding onto the duvet. He could snatch it off the top of the spiral-bound journal and—

Philip's damp hand slithers up Negan's bleeding arm. Then pain bursts in a white-hot nova. Negan cries out, his body thrashing like a fish on a dock.

 _He's fingering the bullet wound, holy fuck, that's a thing that's happening right now…_

Philip laughs a terrible sound, and he wiggles his finger—singular, because Negan refuses to believe there are two of them probing him—inside the wound. Negan grits his teeth and tries to jerk away, his body desperately seeking escape, writhing and lashing, and it isn't until he hears Philip's grunts over his own sobs that he realizes what's happening. Causing Negan pain is secondary to Philip. Each time Negan's body jolts and his hips move forward and back and side to side…

"No," Negan growls through his teeth, shaking but trying not to move, trying to deny this fucker every shred of enjoyment he can. "No, you fucking asshole, it's not fair!"

 _Don't aggravate him,_ Lucille warns. _If he can't maintain the illusion that you're just as crazy about him as he is for you, he'll kill you._

 _And you know he won't leave Judy alive,_ Rick joins in. _He told her his name. His real name. She's a witness._

"Fair? You don't know what unfair is," Philip says, and if he was being gentle before, he has abandoned that notion entirely. Negan's outburst has unleashed something fierce and primal inside of Philip that will not be abated. "Not the slightest fucking idea. You think it's fair my wife left me and won't let me see my daughter? Or is it fair that I grew up with a father who beat me about as often as he took a piss? Or is it fair that I'm stuck working for an idiot half my age with twice my qualifications? Or is it fucking fair"—Negan feels something pulling tight, and no oh no he's not going to come he's _not_ —"that I give and give and give, and you just take and take and take—"

The tightness pulling low in his groin snaps like a rubber band, and Negan comes. He comes with a gun pressed to his head and his rapist's cock inside of him. His face is covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He stares at the mess on his shirt and belly and knows he is going to kill Philip.

Somehow, his own orgasm fills him with more rage and nausea than Philip's race to the finish. Even when he feels the slimy gush inside of him, painting him in places only Rick belongs, Negan holds on tightly to that stroke of heat-lightning anger. Having orgasms was one of Negan's favorite pastimes, and now he won't be able to blow his load for Rick without thinking about this asshole and this awful fucking experience.

 _You're a bad-ass_ , he thinks, his true self shouting from some deep stone gorge in Negan's head. _You aren't scared of shit._

In a move that surprises Negan, he laughs. He isn't entirely sure why, maybe some vital section in his brain has shut down in self-defense, but he can't stop chuckling. Jesus fucking Christ, is he turning into a James Bond villain? He was certain incongruous bouts of laughter only happened in bad movies.

"What's so funny?" Philip asks with an edge of curiosity, as though Negan might say something that will surprise him.

Panting for breath, Negan grins up at Philip, and, yes-sirree, certain parts of his brain have definitely flown south for the winter. "I'm thinking about how I'm gonna kill you."

The fingers of Negan's right hand twitch.

From behind the door, somewhere in the hallway, Judith cries out in glee: "Daddy!"


	28. Chapter 28

As he nears the house, Rick can tell something is wrong. There's a strange car parked in the empty space beside Negan's Charger. A car Rick has never seen on this street before. It's a Ford Excursion that was probably painted white fresh off the lot but is now a dingy beige color. When Rick moves closer, he spots the license plates: North Carolina. Now that's odd. And a bit of a drive. This mystery person (or persons) could have made the trip in the time Rick has been gone, but they would have had to push the speed limit and start the drive near the state line. Perhaps the car belongs to a new neighbor from out of state. All well and good, but there are no houses for sale or rent on their street.

Adding to his mounting fear is the lack of response from Negan. Rick called Negan before starting the drive back home, wanting to know if he or Judith needed anything, and, as corny as it may sound, because he wanted to hear Negan's voice. Rick wasn't worried when Negan didn't answer—he might have been upstairs with Judith and didn't hear the phone—but as time passed he grew concerned over Negan's silence, and downright frightened when Negan didn't respond to his texts. Knowing Negan, the idea that he hasn't checked his phone once all afternoon seemed absurd. Immediately Rick's paternal brain conjured up a cavalcade of horrors centered around Judith, and he reasoned that something horrible must have happened to her, and that's why Negan wasn't responding: he's taken her to the hospital.

 _Or it's too late, and he doesn't know how to tell you the worst has happened._

But the sight of this strange vehicle in their driveway shifts the direction of Rick's thoughts. He no longer thinks Judith has become grievously sick or fallen down the stairs. Now he suspects something evil has gripped his family. His first theory is that a demon, in possession of some poor sap's meatsuit, has come here to enact revenge on the hunters who previously exorcised it. But underneath the doormats—front door and back—are devil's traps, painted and sealed as not to scuff when someone wipes their boots on the mat. A demon wouldn't be able to cross over the traps and into the house.

All at once it hits Rick, a memory springing forth like a sinister jack-in-the-box.: the suspicious vehicle Carl saw the other night. Rick only saw the car for a brief handful of seconds, but what he remembers matches this vehicle exactly.

A peculiar feeling crawls over Rick, a dread he remembers from a disturbance call back in Georgia. He and Shane went out to the scene of a domestic disturbance; a woman called in reporting a heated, violent argument coming from the house next door. When the police cruiser pulled up to the house in question, Rick felt that same dread seize him, as though there had been some invisible portent in the air. Inside, they found four bodies: two children—who had been asleep or cowering in their beds when the gunshots came—the wife, lying on the living room floor in a puddle of blood, and the husband, who had killed his entire family before sending a bullet through the roof of his own mouth and out his brain. He had sat in the living room recliner to do the job, and was still sitting upright when Rick and Shane discovered him. The shotgun had blown his face apart like a grenade.

Even now, it remains the most gruesome thing Rick has ever seen, and he's watched Negan beat an enormous bird-creature to death with a barbed-wire baseball bat.

 _Something is wrong here,_ his inner cop tells him.

Lori would have called this feeling mother's intuition, but Rick suspects fathers have one as well. Or maybe his past experience in law enforcement gives him somewhat of a radar for when things aren't quite right. Whatever the explanation, Rick isn't taking chances.

Rick parks the Mazda two houses away, in between the Rhees and the Millers. If the owner of that Ford Excursion in the Grimes' driveway is an intruder, Rick doesn't want him to hear the car approach. He pops the trunk and lifts up the cover of the secret compartment. He grabs the Colt Python; its special bullets will stop anything—human or otherwise. He screws on a silencer; forty or so decibels less may not seem like much, but when you're firing a gun in a quiet neighborhood, you want to make as little noise as possible.

Rick tucks the gun into the back of his jeans and creeps closer to the house. He goes around the side, crouched low near the window, and peers in.

The window gives him a view of the dining room and the kitchen. Rick doesn't see anything out of place or discordant. He thinks he sees Negan's cell phone on the kitchen island, but he's too far away to tell for certain.

From behind him, he hears a thick sort of scraping sound, then a female voice whisper-shouts his name: "Rick!"

Rick turns his head. Maggie has pushed open the Rhees' living room window. She peers out as though from a crouch.

"I heard a gunshot from your place," she tells him. "I called the police. I don't recognize that car, and I have a bad feeling about this."

Rick nods. The word _gunshot_ gathers up a hard knot of fear in his belly. "Good work."

"Be careful," Maggie says, then Rick is at the front door, he's opening it and rushing inside with his gun drawn. The first floor of the house is empty. He heads upstairs, turning left to the open door of Judith's room. He doesn't see her. There are plenty of safe places she could be, but the strange car parked in their driveway—a vehicle Carl allegedly saw outside their house at a suspicious hour—doesn't fill him with confidence.

"Judy?" Rick whispers.

Underneath the bed, something moves. It's the comforter from Judith's bed, dragging the floor. Her frightened face peers out from behind it. "Daddy!" Judith shouts, a relieved smile on her face.

Rick lowers his gun, crouches to bring himself closer to her. "Are you okay? Where's Negan?"

From the end of the hall, a scream and a gunshot shatter the silence.

* * *

"Daddy!"

Judith's outburst gives Negan the opening he has been looking for. Philip, perched on top of Negan, jerks his head in the direction of Judith's voice. Of course he would. He has a daughter too. He would be tuned to the frequency of a child in need, and he hadn't expected to hear her voice.

Negan seizes the ballpoint pen on the night table. He grips the pen like a dagger and, springing up from the bed, stabs it into Philip's right eye. His eyeball explodes with a wet popping sound, like a grape being stepped on, and Philip screams. His pistol fires. The bullet slices through a pillow. Another cannon blast at Negan's ear. The world rings.

"Get off me, you prick!" Negan drives a heel into Philip's crotch. Philip makes an "oof" sound and topples backwards, falling over the foot of the bed. As he falls, his downward momentum frees the pen—still clutched in Negan's fist—from the viscus of his eye socket. Blood sheets down his face, and he strikes the floor with a vast thud. The gun skitters out of his hand.

Negan dives off the bed, slamming into Philip with all the force of a football tackle. The pain roars to life, everywhere at once—his arm, his thighs, his ass—but Negan is a man possessed, and pain is secondary to vengeance and protecting his child. Philip writhes and twists underneath him, trying to claw his way free. Negan holds on, settling his weight in Philip's lap to pin him down, a deranged reversal of their positions from moments ago. Negan has maybe ten or twenty pounds on the guy and pure fury driving him. Philip jams two fingers into the wound in Negan's arm. Negan grits his teeth against the pain, but he doesn't drop the pen.

"I'll kill 'em all," Philip rasps. His wounded face is a nightmare come to life. "Then you won't have a choice!" He throws his arm out, reaching for the pistol that has slid just out of his grasp.

 _Oh no you don't you fucked-up fuck you're not leaving this room alive_

Negan buries the pen in Philip's throat. Philip chokes a wet noise. Negan pulls it out, and blood spurts from the hole in his neck like a geyser. "How do you like that shit?" Blood splashes onto the front of Negan's shirt, across his neck, his chin, and he feels himself grinning madly, his sanity detached from its moorings. He drives the pen in again and again and again, punching holes smaller than dimes into Philip's throat. "You wanted me to give back? Here you go! Fucking take it! It's all yours, fuckhead!"

The pen's plastic encasement snaps on the fourth stab, because the tool was never intended to puncture anything thicker than a sheet of paper. Negan jerks it out of Philip's neck and tosses it aside. He goes for the pistol.

"Negan."

Negan's ears are still ringing from the gunshot, so it takes him a moment to realize Rick's voice isn't coming from his own head, but from the doorway. Rick stands there holding his Colt Python, watching Negan stab his rapist to death with a Bic pen. And it's as though Rick has grasped the situation as soon as he stepped inside the room, as soon as he saw Negan covered in blood with his jeans halfway down his thighs and madness on his face. Rick's mouth does a twitchy, snarly sort of thing, which Negan would find sexy as fuck on any other day, if the idea of sex didn't repulse him in this moment.

"He's gone," Rick says, shutting the door behind him as he steps closer.

Negan is almost terrified to look, certain he'll turn his head and see Philip grinning through bloody teeth and pointing the pistol at him.

But Philip lies there motionless, his throat a gory mess. Dried blood is caked under his nose, which has turned a dark purple color from the headbutt. His right eye looks like a messily cored cherry.

For a moment, the only sounds are Negan's heavy breaths clashing against the ringing in his ears. Then he hears the faint wail of sirens.

"Shit." Rick moves closer to Negan, crouching beside him as though comforting a child. "Can you make it in there?" His head tips in the direction of their adjoining bathroom.

Yet another stunning case of couple's telepathy. Rick knows exactly what Negan is thinking in this moment: _I have to get him off of me, out of me, erase every goddamn shred of evidence that he ever touched me. The gunshot wound is enough to justify self-defense._ _His threats to kill my daughter are enough. But this… no one needs to know about this._

Negan manages a shaky nod and rises to his feet. He doesn't take his eyes off Philip. His legs are made of jelly, and he staggers toward the bathroom like a newborn calf, hitching his jeans over his hips and ignoring the bolt of pain in his arm as he does. "Be careful. If that fucker's still alive, he'll kill you."

Rick nods back. Of course he understands.

Negan rushes into the bathroom and shuts the door. He flips on the light, and the sight of himself in the mirror startles him. Blood paints his face in flecks and streaks. His eyes are wide and wild, his hair askew and plastered to his forehead, and his arm…

He peels up the sleeve of his shirt, careful not to poke the tender, inflamed wound with his knuckles. The bullet grazed him but left a nasty gash behind, as though a small strip of flesh has been torn off. The wound cuts through the lower section of his cross tattoo. When the skin heals, he'll have to get the ink fixed.

Oh, if only the tattoo was the extent of the damage.

He doesn't have time for this. Negan grabs the package of baby wipes on the countertop. He removes all the traces of Philip he can, methodically, as though wiping down the dipstick in his Charger, or using cleaning oil on the fretboard of his Les Paul.

 _It's just maintenance_ , he tells himself. _You stepped in a huge steaming pile of shit, but it's over now. So scrape it off your shoes._

Except it's not over. No, Negan thinks the circus has just begun, and if the press gets one whiff of sexual assault, he will be buried underneath sensational headlines and news articles, propped up by advocacy groups as some sort of poster-boy for male rape victims, like it's his moral responsibility to expose his trauma to the world. And if he does talk about it, he'll be met with pushback. "Men can't get raped," they will say with holier-than-thou indignation. "But even if they could, you were asking for it." They will drag out all of Negan's sexually charged lyrics as some sort of proof. Then they will point at Negan's marriage to Rick and say, "Well, it must not have been that bad; you take it in the ass all the time."

He will be laughed at, and the thought makes his skin burn, because public humiliation is infinitely worse than pity. Pity comes cheap, sure, but humiliation skirts a little too close to the Bitch's way of doing things, and Negan has had enough of that to last a lifetime.

* * *

Rick sits on the foot of the bed, his Colt pointed at the man on the floor, just in case he has any bright ideas about waking up and causing more trouble. If Rick didn't know better, he'd put a bullet between the fucker's eyes right now and settle this for good. He saw everything he needed to justify shooting this prick. But if Rick's honest with the darker, violent parts of himself, Negan did a fantastic job making this guy suffer. Four puncture wounds to the throat and a stabbed-out eyeball isn't bad for just using a ballpoint pen. And it looks like Negan might have punched him a couple times, if the busted nose and bruised jaw are any indication.

Rick's a little proud of Negan for the brutality on display here, which makes him feel confused. But mostly proud.

The man on the floor stirs. Rick has propped him against the bureau so he doesn't choke on his own blood. No way this guy's getting off that easily. A raspy, wet sound emerges from his throat as he struggles to breathe. His blood-grimed fingers crawl toward his discarded gun.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," Rick tells him, keeping the sight of the Colt on him. "You even think about pointing that at me, and I'll take you out. You think I don't want to after what you did to him?"

The man's hand continues its slow pursuit of the pistol. "Don't," he gurgles out.

"You didn't listen when Negan said no. Why should I?"

"Not—not for you…" He gets a couple fingers on the gun and manages to drag it closer. He curls his shaking hand around the grip, smearing blood on the wood. He lifts the gun with agonizing slowness, and Rick feels a jump in his blood, a pulse of excitement that this douchewagon might be giving him a chance to use the Colt after all.

The man puts the barrel between his lips, tilted towards the roof of his mouth. If he squeezes the trigger, the bullet will enter his brain. Maybe it will burst cleanly through the back of his head, or maybe it will ricochet like a pinball through his skull before nestling in brain matter.

Rick smiles. "For Negan."

The gun goes off with a banging pop. The man's head lolls forward, his body going limp as a ragdoll. Rick hears an inhuman "uhhh" sound, then a wet, dripping splatter, like a burst from an unreliable faucet. Rick wonders if that shotgun suicide he and Shane found back in Atlanta had made similar sounds.

"Rick!" Negan hollers, practically barreling through the bathroom door, an expression of crazed fear on his face.

Rick looks at him, shakes his head. "He's gone. For good."


	29. Chapter 29

Carl sees the police cars when he turns the corner onto their street. The sight adds a layer of terror to the text Rick sent him an hour ago: _go to Tara and Rosita's after school._

Something horrible has happened, Carl is certain. He is also certain that strange car he saw parked outside their house the other night has something to do with it. How could it not? Despite his dads being hunters, Carl doesn't think a monster is the reason why three squad cars are flashing their lights near the Grimes house. Rick and Negan are perfectly capable of handling demons, ghosts, or whatever as-of-yet undiscovered creatures that might bear a grudge against them. And what kind of vampire or werewolf scopes out the house before it attacks?

Perhaps that mysterious car drove by again, and Negan reported it to the cops. The ambulance and fire truck normally dispatched with an emergency call are long gone, or were never dispatched in the first place. Just police following up on a suspicious vehicle report.

 _But then why are there so many? A report like that would only warrant one cop car. Not the three parked in front of your house._

No, Carl must be mistaken. Maybe this isn't about Rick and Negan at all. Maybe something happened to the Millers—a heart attack, or a stroke (they're getting up there in age, after all)—and the cops parked a house or two down so the ambulance could get in and out with ease. Yes, of course, that's what must have happened. In no way could this be a freak accident regarding Judith, or her presumed flu turning into something life-threatening. Of course not.

Carl nears the house. He looks at the Millers' driveway. Empty. How could that be? If something had happened to them, wouldn't their car remain in the driveway? Whoever suffered the heart attack or stroke or what-have-you wouldn't have been able to drive, and the other would have caught a ride with their spouse in the ambulance.

 _No, today is Friday,_ Carl realizes with a clarity that sometimes reaches through the veil of pure terror. _The Millers always go to the farmer's market on Friday._

As Carl passes by his house, he sees bright yellow tape with black letters cordoning off the front porch and door: _Crime scene: do not cross._

 _No…no…._

Carl breaks into a run, as though forward momentum with enough speed could perhaps turn back time, like in that Superman movie. His backpack bounces with each step as he hurtles down the road to Tara and Rosita's house at the end of the cul-de-sac. He opens the door to find—

"Carl."

His dad is there, wrapping him up in a hug. Carl accepts it, relief beginning to wash over him. His father is safe; that makes one out of three. What about the rest?

"Where's Judy?"

"I'm here!" Judith calls from deeper inside the living room. Carl looks past Rick, sees her lying on the couch, playing with Tara's 3DS. She's wrapped in a blanket, her cold-riddled nose red like Rudolph's, but otherwise unharmed.

"What happened?" Carl asks while he catches his breath. "Why's there crime scene tape on our house?"

"Everything's fine," Rick says, and Carl's old enough to know a parental lie when he hears one. His father's eyes are wet and red, transporting Carl back to that dreadful day when he learned Mom was dead.

Carl scans the room. Rosita is in the kitchen, dicing vegetables on a chopping board. Tara folds laundry in the easy chair. If everything is fine, as Rick claims, why are they missing one of their own?

"Where's Negan?"

Rick's expression twitches almost imperceptibly, but Carl catches the change, and he feels weak all over. "He's at the hospital, but he's okay—"

"What?" Carl blurts out. "Then he's not okay. People don't go to the hospital when they're okay." How is Rick so terrible at delivering bad news? Wasn't this part of his job as sheriff? Carl finds himself unable to focus, his thoughts knocked askew. He keeps flashing back to that horrible moment when his life changed forever. He can't handle that kind of tragedy again; he just can't.

"He's hurt, but it's not critical," Rick says. "Someone broke in. Negan took care of it."

Carl wants to be comforted by this brief assessment of the situation, but something about it doesn't ring true. Who the fuck breaks in to a house in the middle of the afternoon when there's a car parked in the driveway? Wouldn't a burglar want to make damn certain the house was empty before trying something like that?

"It was that car!" Carl says with certainty, before realizing how nonsensical that sounds. Of course it wasn't the car. It was the person inside the car, but he's not going to trip over semantics right now. "The one I saw the other night. They must've been"—he tries to remember the term—"casing the joint."

"Yeah." Rick nods somewhat absently. "He was casing it, alright…"

"Why aren't you with Negan?" Carl asks.

"He told me to stay here and take care of you and your sister."

"And you listened to him?" Carl scoffs. "He was probably delirious from blood loss or something."

Rick looks like he wants to argue with that but stops himself. "Negan will be fine," he says instead, probably trying to sound reassuring.

"I need to see him. I can't go by myself; it's too far to ride my bike, and I don't have a license yet." Carl has a sneaking suspicion his father is withholding some vital truths from him, and he thinks he might be able to get the missing pieces out of Negan.

"Carl, I can take you over there," Tara volunteers, setting aside the pile of clothes in her lap. "No sweat. I've been home all day; it'll be good to get out for a bit."

"Great, let's go," Carl says, and he's out the door before Tara has the keys in her hand.

* * *

If this is all some cruel, elaborate joke Rick and Negan have decided to play on Carl in retribution for that time he sneaked out of the house and almost got himself killed by a huge bird-creature, he's not laughing. And it's a hell of a gamble, casting Negan as the injured one. Having Rick as the wounded father would have been the predictable route to elicit panic from Carl. Maybe they knew that and set it up this way to be sneaky.

Carl can believe Tara and Rosita might go along with this gruesome prank, but what about the cop cars he saw in front of the house? Maybe back in King County Rick could have roped some of his cop buddies into this sort of thing, since he was the sheriff and could tell them what to do, but now? Rick is merely a civilian, and even if he has connections with the Alexandria police, those connections can't possibly run this deep.

Which means someone actually tried to kill Negan.

When Carl and Tara arrive at the hospital, the nurse at the reception desk gives the the room number. They take the elevator a few flights up and find the room. "You want me to wait out here?" Tara asks before Carl goes inside.

Carl considers this, nods. "Yeah, sorry."

"Don't worry about it." Tara gives him a smile and heads for the waiting area.

Carl lingers in front of the half-open door, as though preparing himself for what he might see beyond it. He takes a breath and slinks inside. Negan lies in the bed, looking equal parts bored and vacant. There's a patch of cloth bandage on his upper left arm, peeking out underneath the sleeve of his hospital gown. He sees Carl and chuckles a weak laugh. "Did you bribe Rick to bring you here?"

"No. He didn't come." Carl takes a few steps closer. It makes him uncomfortable seeing Negan this way, wounded and fragile, so he tries to crack a joke. "Jeez, Negan, you had one job."

"Screw you, kid," Negan says, but there's no heat to it. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were worried about me."

Carl feels his face go hot. "Shut up." He would never admit it, but he does care for Negan, almost as much as he does for Rick. Losing another parental figure would devastate him. Watching his father grieve all over again would devastate him.

He sits in the chair at Negan's bedside. "So what happened?" Carl asks, studying Negan's face for signs of dishonesty. "Dad said someone broke in."

Negan thinks about this for a moment, as though trying to determine how much to tell Carl.

"I want to know. I live there too."

"Kid, c'mon. It's over and done with," Negan says, but something in his eyes says otherwise.

"Bullshit."

Negan laughs. "Watch your language, young man. Rick'll have my ass if he hears you talk like that." There's a flicker of unreadable emotion on his face, then it's gone as quickly as it appeared.

"Why would someone break in when they knew at least one person was home?" Carl continues. "It was that car I saw the other night, wasn't it? What did they want? Did my dad piss somebody off, and they came by looking for him?"

"Nah, this one was all mine."

Carl isn't exactly surprised to hear that Negan has made enemies, but the statement still throws him for a loop. "What'd you do?"

Negan looks lost. "I still don't have a fucking clue."

Carl is quiet for a moment, turning that over in his head. He looks at the bandage again. "What happened to your arm? Did you get cut?"

Negan shakes his head. "Shot."

"Holy shit. Did it hurt?"

"Like a motherfucker."

Dumb question.

The longer Carl looks at Negan, the more he recognizes that same look he saw on Rick's face. A look that indicates a conscious withholding of some painful, difficult truth. A pitying "you'll understand when you're older" look that Carl wants to smash his fist through. Because he might only be sixteen years old, but he's seen some shit. He's dealt with his mother dying when he was eleven, had to deal with his own grief as well as his father's, had to become a caregiver for his baby sister, and he was almost killed by a monster out in the woods. He can handle the gruesome details of whatever happened in that house.

"Is he still out there?" Carl asks.

"I took care of him," Negan says grimly. That tells Carl a lot, more than he wanted to know.

"Did they try to hurt Judith?"

Negan has that far away look again. "You know I'd never let that happen."

"She's just a kid. Why would someone do that?"

"To hurt me." Negan sighs. "If your dad had been home…" Fear crosses his face like a shadow. "It would've been worse."

Something cold grips Carl's insides. "Why?" How could it have been worse with two able-bodied, trained adults?

"He would've killed Rick. No questions asked. I think the only person he hated more than himself was Rick."

Carl doesn't know how to unpack that statement, so he settles on another joke. "Don't try to be fake-deep."

Negan chuckles. "I did not survive today just to have you sass me, you little prick."

Carl smiles.


	30. Chapter 30

After the doctor gives him a prescription for Percocet, Negan is cleared to leave the hospital, so he rides home with Carl and Tara.

"Glad you're okay, dude," Tara says during the drive. "I mean, you know, all things considered. That bullet could've done some serious damage."

If the bullet is Tara's biggest concern, Rick hasn't told her what really happened. Negan is grateful for this discretion, that Rick is keeping the truth between them, because he doesn't want his friends and family looking at him like he's broken. Doesn't want them seeing him in a new, fragile light. It had been bad enough after Emily and Lucille, and their deaths weren't a shameful secret he felt compelled to hide.

Negan was questioned by police after arriving at the hospital; considering the circumstances of Philip Blake's death, the cops were surprisingly reasonable. Negan told them what happened—with a few careful alterations _—_ and everything checked out. Yes, the front door had been unlocked, but according to the version of this story put together by Negan and Rick, Philip Blake just waltzed on in without permission. Philip claimed to be Negan's biggest fan and took issue with the changes in the band's music (not to mention Negan's recent marriage); he held Negan at gunpoint and threatened to shoot Judith if Negan didn't comply with his demands. Negan bends the truth a bit in regards to why the tussle happened in the bedroom. According to Negan, he had been there all along when Philip found him. The rest plays out in mostly the same fashion, albeit without the _violation_.

After Philip died, Rick wiped down any traces of Negan's DNA from him, as well as Philip's own ejaculate, so there would be no evidence of sexual activity discovered during an autopsy (in the event one was performed). Negan surmises any investigation into Philip Blake's past will reveal a troubled mental state and, for better or worse, cops love easy answers. The simplest conclusion is that Philip Blake went crazy stalker-fan and tried to kill Negan, which is exactly what happened, sans a few salacious details.

From the outside, the house looks just as normal as it had this morning. There are no cop cars parked out front, no evidence collection vehicles, no yellow crime scene tape plastered across the front porch. Rick is already inside, having put Judith down for a nap after her medicine tired her out. While Carl looks around the dining room, curious what may have been altered, Rick approaches Negan and places a hand on the bandaged spot on Negan's arm. Negan shakes him off, albeit gently, but he sees the wounded look on Rick's face when he does so.

"I set you up in the basement," Rick says. "We'll deal with the bed. Glenn said he'll help put in new carpet."

Negan appreciates Rick's attention to detail, his understanding that Negan wants nothing to do with the bedroom right now, but he can't form the right words. He nods and says, "Well, that was nice of him."

Rick opens his mouth to respond but stops. His gaze deflects, then he looks at Negan, trying again. "You saved her life. Don't think I don't know that."

Negan is aware he should say something to lighten the mood, maybe make a joke about how Rick can make it up to him tonight. But the thought seems to belong to someone else, and he can only manage a nod and a faint, "Yeah."

Negan is also aware that Carl is watching him.

"I'll take care of dinner," Rick says, as though this is just another day for them; Negan would kiss Rick if he wasn't frightened about falling apart at the touch.

They share a quiet meal at the table about an hour and a half later. The dish is a tried and true Negan favorite, but he doesn't feel much like eating. He hasn't eaten since breakfast, and though his empty stomach is sour and imperative with hunger, he knows any food he puts in won't stay down. Negan does his best, however, swallowing down a few bites before ultimately giving up.

Carl points his fork at Negan's plate. "You gonna finish that?"

"Knock yourself out, kid," Negan says, pushing the plate across the table towards Carl.

Carl gives him a suspicious look before digging in. He isn't blind to the way Carl's been watching him since the hospital, like Negan is a bomb waiting to detonate. A horrifying thought crosses Negan's mind: could Carl _know_?

No, impossible. There's no reason for Carl to suspect anything other than a botched burglary happened here. The revelation that Negan killed someone has probably thrown Carl for a loop.

Except Carl's father was a cop. One of Carl's first questions to Rick after learning of his profession was most likely, "Have you ever killed anyone?" And even if Rick never had—or never admitted to it—Carl is probably comfortable with the possibility of his father taking a life. So why would it be a big deal to find out Negan has? Rick and Negan hunt monsters; killing is par for the course.

But killing a vampire and killing a human are two different things, and Carl is old enough to understand that. For Carl, this is the sort of thing that only happens in movies and television, so of course he would be a little stunned and wary that the violence of the outside world managed to creep into the supposedly-safe walls of his home.

 _You're being a paranoid dumbass,_ Negan thinks. _Why the fuck would he think the burglar was actually an obsessed nutso fan who took you upstairs and had his way with you at gunpoint? For better or worse, no one thinks that kind of shit happens to men._

Unexpectedly, Negan feels incredibly small.

* * *

While Rick cleans up the kitchen, Carl sneaks into the upstairs bedroom. He doesn't often venture here, since it's the room where his parents bone, but he's morbidly curious about the crime scene. After what Rick said about replacing the carpet, Carl wants to see just how bad the room looks to warrant such treatment. As long as Negan, Rick, and Judith are fine, Carl can handle seeing a little blood. The intruder is an abstract concept to him; he doesn't know the man's name or his face, does not know the details that make the stranger human, and it is far easier to look at things coldly when you can dehumanize the subject.

Carl checks a glance over his shoulder before ducking into the room. The first thing he sees is the bed. The linens have been changed from the previous silver and aqua comforter set; the bedding is now rather tacky, decked out with splashes of teal, blue, and white. The duvet drags the floor, as though intended for a larger bed. Must have been Negan's, though Carl cannot imagine Negan picking these colorful linens out—probably Lucille's, then.

Carl doesn't see a reason for Rick to have changed the bedding, unless… He moves closer and folds the blankets over, pushing aside pillows so he can reach the nearest corner of the fitted sheet. If the bedding had been stained, say, with blood, it most likely would have soaked through the sheets and into the mattress itself. That must be why Rick said they would "deal with" the bed.

Carl pulls aside the fitted sheet, gathering the slack in his hand, and peels it down about halfway. The mattress is encased in a plastic protector, like Carl's own, but the faint pink smear stained on the white plastic speaks volumes. Someone—Negan?—had bled like a stuck pig on this bed.

Quickly, Carl reassembles the bedding, tucking the fitted sheet over its corner, adjusting the pillows, folding the blankets back to their original positions. As he turns, he sees the gruesome horror show on the bureau and the carpet. The lower half of the dresser is painted in an explosion of blood splatter. A dried, almost black puddle spreads out from the bottom of the bureau, as though the piece of furniture sprung a leak. Too much blood. Too much for a person to lose and survive.

The realization rushes over Carl like a living thing, making him shudder: _this must be the spot where the burglar died._

Carl has never knowingly been in a room where someone died before. He's sure it must have happened at some point, but the knowledge of it, the awareness of that loss of life, seems important somehow.

He tries to piece together what happened. Say Negan had been in here, and the burglar sneaked up on him. He shoots Negan, and Negan falls onto the bed. Does that sound right? For the blood on the mattress to make sense in the place that it is, Negan would have had to… what? Fly backwards like something out of a bad movie? Carl hasn't shot a gun before—or been shot, thank God—but he knows bullets don't carry that kind of force. So Negan must have been lying on the bed, taking a nap when the burglar entered. That's how the blood stain got up by the pillows.

Carl isn't sure if he buys that. Negan had been watching Judith; a nap would be the last thing on his mind, especially as the only other person in the house.

Carl looks at the mess on the bureau again. Somehow, the confrontation ended here. Negan wouldn't have had his own gun—they keep all the firearms locked away, out of the house—so he must have wrestled the gun out of the burglar's hands. If Carl is standing where the shooter had been—between the bed and the dresser—how had Negan managed to do that without getting shot a second time?

And the location of the blood on the dresser is curious. It's almost as though someone was huddled against the bureau when—

The explosion of blood. Carl has seen that pattern before, blasting zombies with headshots in Left 4 Dead.

He leaves the room with a shudder before Rick can catch him.

* * *

That night, Negan is torn between two extremes. Part of him wants desperately not to be alone tonight, to be upstairs in bed with Rick. But the other part feels far too vulnerable for such intimacy, and like hell he's stepping foot inside that room again, or lying in the same bed where _it_ happened. He would ask—beg, even—Rick to sleep down here with him, but someone needs to be close enough for the kids' sake.

So he is alone in the basement, and this prospect is just as frightening as it had been the last time trauma carved a fissure in his life. Although the basement stairway is equipped with iron rails to ward off spirits, Negan is still convinced Philip Blake's ghost will find him and finish the job. Or, oh fuck, what if he goes after Rick? Despite their house being warded with rock salt and iron, Negan cannot shake this fear.

 _Distract yourself,_ he thinks, and, yes, that's a wonderful idea. Distractions helped him through the nightmare of losing Emily and Lucille: fifteen songs, most winding up unused on _The New World_ , but viability doesn't matter at this point. Songwriting is his therapy.

The basement resembles the one Negan had in his previous home: loaded with guitars, a wide-screen TV, video games, and various music equipment. It's a smaller space than he's used to, but it gets the job done. In the drawer of the side table near the futon, Negan finds his own journal, a dog-eared notebook filled with the skeletons of songs. He flips it open to a blank page and begins to write, slowly at first, then in quick bursts, his words finding their partners with relative ease. He has a melody by the bottom of the first page, chord notations scribbled above select words:

 _Are all of us so easily broken,_

 _When it's stolen,_

 _Missing a part of you,_

 _I find that I am frozen,_

 _Code red,_

 _Body's melting down,_

 _Ring the alarm,_

 _Open your eyes,_

 _Is this a flashback or a dream,_

 _Who are you,_

 _Holding me down with your lies and your love but it's turning me cold,_

 _I can feel your spirit here haunting me,_

 _By my side when I'm all alone,_

 _Whispering what else you're gonna steal from me,_

 _I can't get you out of my head,_

 _No matter what, it's too much to handle._

Negan pauses here, not because he doesn't know how to continue, but because the futility of it all creeps into his veins like a poison. What, he wonders, is the point when writing music is what got him into this mess in the first place? If Negan had listened to his parents and become a doctor or a lawyer or even a damn car salesman, none of this shit would have happened. He would have lived a numbingly dull life, sure, but he wouldn't have been raped and almost murdered or had his family's lives threatened, wouldn't have had to stab his attacker to death with a ballpoint pen. And a numbingly dull life seems like a decent trade-off at the moment.

Part of him—the part that is reasonable and rational—argues that a lawyer might run into a similar threat. Defending or prosecuting the wrong client could land him in hot water and on some mafioso's hit list, or for simply failing to keep a client out of prison. Even a doctor could run into a malpractice lawsuit after being unable to save someone, perhaps a prestigious donor to the hospital.

But the other part of him disagrees. The frequency of lawyers being stalked by someone with an axe to grind seems highly exaggerated by fictional courtroom thrillers. He can't recall one instance where that happened outside of movies like Cape Fear, yet he can recall a trifecta of real-life celebrities stalked and murdered by overzealous, entitled fans: John Lennon, Selena, Rebecca Schaeffer. The fact that those cases stick out in his mind after so long speaks volumes about the dangerous vocation he's chosen. Christ, even hunting monsters is less dangerous: you're holding a weapon and you know what's coming.

Philip's nasty voice comes back to Negan: _Now that… is a hell of a song._

Philip had praised "Love You to Death," and, recalling the lyrics, Negan can see how it might have spoken to him:

 _Girl, I'm gonna love you,_

 _Until my last breath,_

 _I can't live without you,_

 _A fate worse than death,_

' _Cause I'm gonna love you,_

' _Til there's nothin' left,_

 _Just reach out and take it,_

 _My heart from my chest,_

 _I'm gonna love you to death._

Negan's inner voice sneers, _Oh, I'm sure he loved that one, shithead. Didn't have to twist it very much to suit his needs, did he?_

But Negan supposes Philip's brain, detached from any plane of reality, wasn't playing fair. After all, the remix of "Party" set him off, and that's as harmless as a song can get. It had been the genre Philip took issue with, the reimagining of something he believed to be sacred. That whole album must have royally pissed Philip off, all those classic songs retooled into "dance club garbage," as he so poetically put it.

 _You don't get to change it. It's not yours anymore. Once you put it out there, it's ours. And you don't get to take that away._

Negan stares at the half-formed song he has written, debating just tearing the whole thing up and letting that be the end of his career. Not with a bang, but a whimper. _Well, Philip, you slimy fuck, how about you get nothing, then? The tent's closed up, the circus has left town, because thin-dicked pricks like you think you get to run the show._

"Fuck it," Negan murmurs. He tosses the notebook back into the drawer. The bullet wound, wrapped in gauze, has already begun to ache like a mad bastard. Negan opens the mini fridge and takes out a beer, then, reconsidering, swaps it for a Coke. Best not to mix prescription drugs with alcohol.

He takes one Percocet with a long swallow of Coke. In desperate need of a new distraction, he settles onto the fold-out bed and picks up the PlayStation controller from the coffee table. Looks like he finally has time to play that new Assassin's Creed.

* * *

Rick wakes up alone the next morning. He runs a hand over the cold space on the bed where Negan should be. He checks the bedside clock, rubbing his aching eyes. It's about 9 a.m., and Rick figures now's as good a time as any to start the day.

Downstairs, he finds Carl and Judith seated at the kitchen table. Someone—Negan, perhaps?—has made pancakes; the skillet lies in wait on a switched-off burner, the box of pancake mix sitting on the kitchen island. Carl's stuffing a forkful of pancakes into his mouth with one hand and typing on his phone with the other. Judith sticks a whipped cream-covered finger in her mouth.

"Negan made breakfast?" Rick asks as he approaches the table.

"No, Carl did," Judith tells him proudly. "I got to stir."

"He's still asleep," Carl says.

Rick nods, pushes a hand through Judith's messy hair. "How you feelin' today? Better?"

"Uh-huh! I could breathe when I woke up!" Judith says.

Rick smiles. "That's great. Keep takin' your medicine, and maybe you'll be able to go back to school on Monday."

He opens the basement door, almost afraid of what he might find there. After descending halfway down the stairs, he sees Negan fast asleep on the fold-out couch. Negan is curled in the fetal position, his shirt sleeve rucked up enough to show the thick cloth bandage around his upper arm. Spread out on the coffee table are the remnants of Negan's night: a can of Coke, the orange prescription bottle, a video game controller, TV remotes, and Negan's cell phone.

Rick takes the rest of the stairs and stands at the foot of the couch. "Negan."

Negan jerks awake, an expression of panic on his face until he recognizes Rick. He scoots against the opposite end of the couch, lazily propped up by a pillow. "We got a problem?" His hair sticks up askew, and Rick wants to brush it in place with his fingers.

"No, just wonderin' if you want breakfast."

Negan seems to consider this but offers no response. He hauls himself up, groaning as he does so, and scratches his bandaged arm. "Damn thing's itching like a son of a bitch." He kicks free of the blankets and sleepily stumbles towards the small half-bathroom. "Give me a minute."

Rick says that he will and goes back upstairs.

Negan joins them at the table five minutes later. Carl actually looks up from his phone, surprised to see him here. "Hey, Negan."

Rick hears the uncertainty in Carl's voice, like the kid doesn't know how to react around him.

Judith has no such inhibitions, and she greets him with all the energy she can muster.

"Mornin', kids," Negan says, not unkindly. "After breakfast, why don't you two help me decorate the house for Halloween? We got a couple weeks; might as well make 'em count."

"Yay!" Judith cheers. "I wanna put up lights!"

"Can we finally use my skull centerpiece?" Carl asks. He made a ceramic skull for his final project in last year's art class, and he tried to incorporate it into their Halloween decor last year. Rick said no.

"I think it's time for Mr. Bones to make his grand appearance at our table," Negan says, looking to Rick for confirmation.

Rick gives him a slight nod of approval. He can see what Negan's doing here—distracting himself with a project—but he can't complain when Negan's involving the kids in something constructive. And maybe there's something to be said for this method of coping, of continuing on as though nothing has changed.

* * *

While Negan, Judith, and Carl adorn the house with the boxful of Halloween decorations from the attic, Rick and Glenn replace the carpet in the master bedroom. Rick has ordered a home-delivery of the required square-footage, and while the job doesn't really need a second person, Glenn volunteered, and Rick could use the company.

"So, um, what happened?" Glenn asks while they're moving the bed. "I mean, Maggie told me some of it—she said she heard gunshots from your place and called the police—but if you wanna talk about it—"

"Negan was stalked," Rick says, and he thinks he's allowed to admit at least that much. "Some crazy fan who wanted to punish him for 'selling out.' That's just about all he's told me." Rick doesn't know exactly what happened in this bedroom, but he has an idea, a sick knot in his gut when he thinks about finding Negan shot and violated.

"He won't talk to you?"

"Not about this."

And Rick gets it. After Lori died he avoided the subject and would have gone on ignoring it far longer if the kids didn't necessitate handling his grief. Even the thought of breaching this subject with Negan makes Rick nervous and sweaty. Part of him believes things will fall back into place if he gives Negan time and room to recover.

Glenn's looking at the blood-stained dresser. "Is that where the guy…"

Rick nods. "Shot himself. But Negan roughed him up pretty good."

"How's he doing?"

"He's… shaken up." _Now there's an understatement._ "Judy was home when it happened. The guy threatened to kill her. Negan took a bullet for her."

"Oh shit… I hope the press isn't hounding you guys too much."

Rick negotiated with the cops at the scene, and they agreed to keep Negan's name out of it as much as possible. Negan's manager must have negotiated a similar deal with the hospital and God knows who else. They haven't received any inquiring callers or visitors yet, but it's barely been twenty-four hours. Though it's not like Negan's fame is on par with that of, say, Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber. As far as Rick has seen, pop stars tend to get more media coverage than rock stars.

"Not yet, but we're ready for it," Rick says.

Glenn's looking at the dresser again; Rick can't exactly blame him. "Y'know, Maggie can probably repaint that. She's good with that kind of stuff."

Rick isn't sure if repainting is the way to go, or if he ought to just trash the thing and buy a new one. But replacing the furniture and recarpeting the floor won't hide the decay. He knows all about residual hauntings, about how traumatic events can imprint themselves in the atmosphere.

"That would be nice."

* * *

Three days later, Rick enters the basement while Negan's playing Grand Theft Auto V. If Rick is bothered by Negan's unproductive use of his time, he doesn't mention it. Negan pauses, looks at him. "Somethin' on your mind?"

"He was cremated," Rick says.

Neither of them say anything for a while. Perhaps nothing else needs to be said.

Negan nods in acknowledgement.

"Maybe you'll sleep easier," Rick says as he heads up the stairs.

Negan doesn't. Philip Blake's ghost may be incapable of manifesting in the house, but he still haunts it.


	31. Chapter 31

Negan continues on this way for the rest of the week, isolating himself in the basement at night and busying himself with the kids by day. He drives Carl and Judith to school, which Rick weakly protests on account of the dark circles under Negan's eyes.

"You getting enough sleep?" Rick asked him Thursday morning, extricating the nearly empty coffee mug out of Negan's hands. He curled his fingers around Negan's own, and Negan let him take them. It was strange, Negan thought, this newfound instinct to slip out of Rick's grasp. Like it wasn't Rick's hands on him, but someone else's.

"Y'know, in our heyday I'd do two shows back-to-back without any sleep. I think I can handle playing chauffeur for a half-hour."

"Well, you're not on cocaine now."

Negan scowled. He regretted telling Rick about his past experimentation with uppers.

Rick smiled, as though doing so might soften Negan's expression. And on a normal day, it would. Rick slid a hand across Negan's forearm and began a careful ascent to the gauze covering his hot, aching—but healing—wound. Negan gently moved his arm out from underneath Rick's touch; he saw the flicker of pain in Rick's eyes before it disappeared, reshaped into something else. Rick's hand dropped away, but he held Negan's gaze until Negan faltered.

"I'm worried about you," Rick finally said.

Negan heard him and, for the briefest moment, considered opening up to him, but he couldn't fathom burdening the man he loves so much with all that pain and madness. So Negan faked a smile and said, "I'm peachy-fucking-keen, honey. Don't worry about me." He snatched his car keys off the counter before Rick could argue.

Because it isn't the daytime Negan has trouble with. While the sun is up, he can distract himself with household chores and child-care quite easily. It's the nights that keep him awake in a panic, searching the shadows for any trace of a midnight visitor. When he is unlucky enough to sleep, the nightmares come.

The previous night, he drifted off on a whiskey lullabye, trading the temporary comfort of the Percocet for the dreamless sleep found with alcohol. But he found himself right back in that upstairs bedroom with Philip Blake inside and over and all around him. Only this time when he reached for the pen, the night table stretched out beyond his grasp, as though being sucked into a black hole. Negan heard himself whimper, felt the muzzle of the gun press against his temple, smelled the hot stench of pennies.

He looked down at himself. His body was split at the torso, bearing a grisly axe wound. Philip was still fucking Negan's lower half, which would have struck Negan as comical in any other circumstance, but despite being nearly severed he could still feel the insistent shove of angry thrusts. Between his top and bottom halves, blood soaked the sheets. He scrabbled to escape but only succeeded in widening the gaping split. He saw sinew and tendons pull apart like snapped rubber bands.

His ex-wife materialized at the side of the bed, kneeling there and stroking his sweat-drenched forehead as though comforting a child with a fever. "I was trying to warn you," she said coldly. "This is what happens when you don't listen, when you don't know what's good for you." His father's voice. His father's words.

Negan woke up sweating and gasping in the dark. His clammy hands searched for his torso, found it attached and intact. He found the bottle of Jack Daniel's next, right where he'd left it on the coffee table. Negan took a few swallows and prayed for morning.

So, no, Rick, Negan's not getting enough sleep, because when he falls down the well of dreamland, that's the kind of shit waiting for him at the bottom.

* * *

On Friday afternoon, Negan comes bounding up the basement stairs into the dining room, where Rick is on his laptop digging into the life of Philip Blake. Rick shuts the laptop lid, a little startled, because Negan is grinning for the first time in what feels like ages; a combination of joy and hope blooms in Rick's chest.

"Did I catch you looking at porn?" Negan asks, looking bewildered and amused by Rick's reflexes.

"No, I just—you surprised me." Rick finds himself smiling. It's good to see hints of the old Negan—the real Negan—shining through again. "What's on your mind?"

"Check this shit out." Negan hands Rick his phone, and Rick looks at the screen. He doesn't know what he was expecting to see, but it certainly isn't this. "I believe we got a case."

Negan's phone displays a news article out of Winchester, Virginia detailing two mysterious deaths involving bite wounds and bodies drained of blood.

"What do you think: vampire or chupacabra?" Negan says, still wearing that excited grin. "Place your bets."

Rick gives him a curious look. "We're for hire. That means people hire us. We don't show up uninvited."

Negan rolls his eyes like Rick's semantics lesson gives him a headache. "What's the big deal? Let's just poke around and ask questions. If anyone crawls up our ass about it, we'll say someone hired us."

"It's a small town," Rick says. "People usually know each other's business. Somethin' like hiring a P.I. to look into two strange deaths would be local gossip."

Negan just scowls at him.

"I came from a small town," Rick adds, feeling the need to justify himself. "I know what they're like. Steppin' in uninvited is just gonna cause problems."

A flash of anger and disappointment spreads over Negan's face.

"And weren't you the one who said we should back off this stuff?" Rick asks. "Let someone else do the dangerous work?"

"Mitigating circumstances, Sheriff. Don't tell me you're not familiar with that one." Negan grins again, and the sight of it is brilliant. Despite his sleepless eyes, Negan looks somewhat like himself, and this is a sight Rick has not seen since Philip Blake intruded on their lives.

"Someone has to watch the kids," Rick says, offering some semblance of argument, but he knows Negan has already considered this.

"And Carl did a damn fine job last time we let him play Mr. Mom."

Rick remembers; it was their excursion to Shenandoah National Park to find Sophia Peletier.

If driving out to some small town in search of vampires will help Negan recover the lost pieces of himself, Rick thinks inconvenience is a small price to pay.

"Alright," Rick says. "Let's go."

* * *

The hunt is interesting, to say the least. Due to Negan's celebrity status and recent resurgence in the media, Rick does most of the legwork, posing as a journalist gathering information on the mysterious deaths. The town is small and quiet, much like Rick expected.

After nightfall, they find the creature in a subset of forest named Devil's Backbone. The monster looks like Gollum on steroids, hairless and pale with gangling limbs. Its fangs glisten with saliva and blood in the moonlight.

"Motherfucking chupacabra!" Negan gloats, twirling the baseball bat in his hand before he steadies his grip. "Batter up!" He swings, bashing the barrel of the bat into the creature's skull. The monster squeals a hideous sound, its neck snapping to the side in a way nature never intended. The momentum and velocity of the swing broke the creature's neck, but Negan doesn't stop. And Rick is back in that forest watching Negan brutalize the Nachtkrapp all over again, the bat crashing down against bone and splinters and finally the pulpy mess of brains and blood.

Negan slings the bat as he pivots to face Rick, and gore splatters the shins of Rick's jeans. "You owe me ten bucks," Negan says, referring to the bet they made on the drive into Winchester. "That thing was no fucking vampire."

Rick holsters his gun, his body feeling shaky and loose. He felt the same way after watching Negan stab holes in Philip Blake's throat. Not that he had sympathy for Blake, but Rick had been blindsided by the brutality Negan was capable of, the realization that the same hands that grip his hips, and check Judith's forehead for a fever, and interlock so perfectly with his own can kill. And, God help him, that shouldn't turn him on, but it does.

They fuck in the backseat of the car. Or, rather, Negan fucks him while Rick is almost too stunned to properly participate. Before the fog of arousal clouded his brain, he reminded Negan to use a condom—their usual protocol for in-vehicle coitus—but it wasn't the leather upholstery Rick was concerned about. He had, in fact, been thinking about Philip Blake and what may have passed between him and Negan; STDs aren't generally disclosed in an obituary, so Rick's research hasn't shed any light in that regard.

Negan is quiet during the sex, huffing and grunting Rick's name every once in a while instead of his usual nonstop dirty talk. And it's not like Rick misses the way Negan never shuts up or his weird "call me Daddy" kink, except maybe he does. Because that's the Negan he knows and loves, not the guy plowing into him from behind with little to no emotion, like fucking Rick is just one bullet point on a list of things he has to get done today. But Rick isn't complaining, not by a long shot. This is the first time Negan has willingly touched him—much less fucked him—in a week. Maybe this is a sign of progress, and Negan has to work through some things by smashing monsters' skulls like they're rotted pumpkins.

* * *

Negan's confidence and regained sexual dynamism don't carry over when they get home, as though there's a forcefield in the doorway that strips him of these things. And, perhaps, since the attack occurred here, there is. He sequesters himself in the basement, an inmate returning to his cell after twenty minutes in the prison yard. Rick doesn't think Negan has eaten dinner, but he doesn't push, doesn't want to be a nag, because the impersonal sex in the car is a step forward for Negan. Rick has to be careful here.

He checks on Negan once before bed; Negan's down there playing video games again. Rick can't recall hearing Negan play guitar since the incident, but maybe he hasn't been paying attention. Rick has, after all, been busy fixing up the bedroom, learning as much as he can about the man who broke their lives, and looking into hiring actual associates for their monster-hunting business.

As Rick heads upstairs, Carl pokes his head out of his bedroom. "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"You're hunting again?"

"It was Negan's idea."

Carl doesn't seem to know what to do with this information. "Is he okay?"

Rick knows Carl isn't asking about Negan's physical state. He offers a half-nod. "He's getting there. Maybe taking the long way."

"He doesn't touch you anymore," Carl says, and Rick hasn't realized how much Carl has silently observed between them until now. "It's like he's afraid of you."

"Not me," Rick says, although he agrees.

"Are you gonna get a divorce?"

That notion has never occurred to Rick before, but now that it's been voiced he can't help but feel wary about it. The idea that this could be what ultimately breaks them—the tragedy Negan cannot move past—is unthinkable. And yet…

Rick has never seen Negan in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy, but he has a feeling this one is different than the rest. A wider chasm to bridge. Loss brought them together, but Rick has no experience with this, personal or tangential. He is terrified of saying the wrong thing, yet nervous that giving Negan space sends a silent message that he doesn't care.

"I—I don't think so," Rick says. He's aware this isn't a great answer, but Carl's old enough to see through the bullshit of a lie. Sometimes honesty is the best policy. "We're gonna work together and make sure that doesn't happen."

Carl nods, seeming to accept this, and ducks into his room.

* * *

While Rick sleeps, Negan self-destructs. He became a monster today, did things he had no business doing. Dragging Rick on a hunt when Rick clearly hadn't wanted any part of it was bad enough, popping a boner while murdering the creature worse still, but Negan's greatest sin today had been fucking Rick in the backseat of that car after the hunt, flying high on endorphins and bloodlust and _control_. It wasn't the first time they fucked after a job, but it felt different somehow, less like a mutual coupling and more like a feeding frenzy, a cheetah leaping on a downed gazelle. _Let me do what I want, don't say no, never stop._

Lying on the fold-out couch in the dark basement, a sudden insight occurs to Negan: _You're no better than Dad or the Bitch or even that crazy asshole Philip. All of them felt powerless and tried to reclaim it at your expense. And look at you now, perpetuating the cycle of abuse like a textbook victim. And screwing Rick after the hunt? That wasn't all adrenaline and endorphins. You got off on killing something, on having power and control. Just like everyone who's ever hurt you. You can bet Philip Blake got hard watching you struggle; you can put Vegas money on that one. Did you even ask Rick if he wanted your cock, or did you just take it on faith he'd be a good little hubby and open his legs for you?_

 _Would you have stopped if he said no?_

"Fuck off," Negan grumbles, reaching for the whiskey bottle on the table.

 _Sure, have another drink, you stupid alcoholic. Like father, like son. Emily got off easy; she would've been born with your poison inside her. At least Carl and Judy have a chance if Rick comes to his senses and—_

Negan takes a long, deep swig from the bottle to drown out this hateful voice he has carried with him for so long. "Shut your goddamn mouth," he snarls, almost slamming the bottle onto the table. "Lucille booted your ass out of my head, and if Rick knows you're still in there, he'll tear you to fucking pieces."

 _Is that before or after you disappear into a bottle and go all Jack Torrance on your family? Or maybe you'll do them a favor and walk out, just like Dad. You're ruining them. You destroy everyone you love: Mom, Lucille, Emily. You almost got Judy killed. Carl already wants to be a hunter. What're you gonna do to Rick?_

"I didn't kill Emily," Negan murmurs, as though reminding himself. And neither did Lucille, for that matter. The miscarriage was a freak accident that Lucille's doctors had warned them about from the start. And Negan's mother died of lung cancer, because she started smoking about a pack a day after Dad left.

 _And whose fault is it,_ the hateful voice asks, _that Dad walked out of that house and never came back? The 'worthless waste of jizz' he called a son? The 'stupid little whoredog'?_

Negan swallows another drink.

 _Alcohol's a depressant, you dumb motherfucker. The more you drink, the more you're stuck with me. You can call me the asshole voice or the prick with the bad thoughts if it makes you feel better, but we both know I'm the stone-cold truth._

Negan curls into himself. It's as though a psychic tidal wave has crashed into him, and he feels all his failures and mistakes and fuck-ups so profoundly that it paralyzes him, aching deep in his bones. Feeling the depth of it all, he buries his face in the pillow, but neither tears nor sleep come.

An indeterminate amount of time passes. Negan hears the basement door open. He immediately assumes Philip Blake has come back, and his heart kicks out a panicked cluster of beats. Peering into the darkness at the top of the stairs, Negan recognizes the bow-legged silhouette before it speaks his name.

"Negan?" Rick whispers into the quiet dark.

Negan makes an interrogatory groan in his throat and sits up. "What's wrong?"

"Thought you might want some company." Rick waits for a denial that doesn't come; he knows Negan cannot ask him to stay, but the absence of a gruff "get the fuck out" response tells Rick everything. He joins Negan on the fold-out couch, and Negan makes room for him.

"What about the kids?"

"I think you need me more than they do tonight," Rick says, snuggling close.

Negan doesn't tell Rick how right he is. How did Rick know Negan was wrestling with the demons in his head, that the night's hunt and subsequent sex loosened something in him? Couple's telepathy again, or could Rick feel the disturbance coming off Negan like radiation?

Negan curls an arm around Rick. They lie on their sides, facing each other, and in the minimal light Negan sees Rick gazing at him. "I'm sorry," Negan says, his voice soft and shaking. "I shouldn't have—Shit, it was all wrong."

Rick eyes him curiously, like he doesn't understand.

"After the hunt… Me and you…" Negan squeezes his eyes shut. "Rick, if that's not something you want, you gotta tell me. Don't ever go along with shit just to keep me happy. I would never—"

Negan stops himself before Philip Blake's words leave his own mouth: _I would never do such a thing without your permission._

"I know." Rick places a gentle hand on Negan's scruffy cheek. His touch almost burns. "You're a good man."

"Now there's a load of shit."

Rick believes innately in Negan's goodness, which makes it worse, because that means Rick hasn't truly seen the muck and rot beneath Negan's shallow charm.

They're close enough that Rick must smell the whiskey on Negan's breath. "I didn't 'go along' with it. I wanted it. I wanted _you_. You just surprised me, is all."

 _Would he still think you're good if he knew you got off on that kill?_

Negan frowns at the thought, and Rick's fingers travel into Negan's hair. "Talk to me."

 _Tell him. Show him what a fucking piece of shit you are. You don't deserve that kind of love._

"I liked how killing that thing made me feel," Negan says, and it's out there now, too late to take it back. He waits for the look of stunned disgust on Rick's face.

Rick's empathetic expression doesn't change. "I know. It's okay. You think I didn't do the same thing after Lori died? I wanted to feel like I was in control."

"But it didn't get you hard, did it? That's some serial killer shit, don't you think?"

"Nah, I know you better than that." Rick offers a sly smile. His hand snakes between them and cups Negan through his sweatpants. "I can count on one hand"—a squeeze, and Negan groans—"how many times we've screwed after a hunt. I'd need a calculator to count all the other times."

Negan wants to rejoice that Rick has heard this dark secret and thought nothing of it. Rick's touch and reassurance have, at least temporarily, banished the malicious voice back into the attic of Negan's mind. Like Lucille before him, Rick seems to know just what to say, and how to say it in a way that doesn't get the words caught in Negan's self-loathing filter.

"You're nothin' like him," Rick says with an edge, like he's willing to fight anyone who would say otherwise. "Or your father. And you didn't deserve what happened, no matter what anyone says, even that asshole voice in your head. They're wrong. Nobody deserves that."

Negan nods. Right now, he wants nothing more than to believe in his own goodness with as much conviction as Rick does. He knows it's so much easier to simply accept these statements than rail against them with the mental gymnastics required to maintain the "I'm a piece of shit" status quo. Self-hate is draining, and Negan is exhausted enough.

"Okay, I'll bite," Negan says as he tucks his body against Rick's own. If he can manage even just one night of peaceful sleep under the calming influence of Rick's presence, he'll take it. Rick holds him close, his breath warm and soothing in Negan's hair, and Negan drifts away.

* * *

Negan would make an amazing research assistant; he manages to find troves of mysterious deaths and disappearances within in a three-state radius. Phrases like "authorities are baffled" are typically calling cards of the paranormal, and over the next few days Negan inundates Rick's text messages with links to reports of suspicious happenings.

"We're not driving all the way to Atlantic City," Rick calls down the basement stairs after one such link.

"Fine, we'll fly," Negan calls back.

"Not my point." Rick descends the stairs and joins Negan on the futon, which has remained folded out as a bed since Negan took up residence here. "Look, we can't barge into these cases uninvited. There's only so many times we can claim to be journalists or reporters. We start fakin' credentials, and it's all downhill from there. We're still real ; we don't want to"—Rick searches for the word, finds a flowery one but, fuck it, it's the best he's got right now—"besmirch our reputations."

Negan snorts a laugh, his nose crinkling in that familiar, endearing way. "'Besmirch'? That's a high-dollar fuckin' word for you, Rick."

Rick gives a half-nod of assent. "But you get it, right? You go lookin' for trouble…" He trails off, leaving the expression unfinished.

"That's the thing about trouble; sometimes it finds you when you're minding your own damn business."

Rick sighs. There are discussions he needs to have with Negan, unpleasant topics he'd rather not dredge up. But it seems as though Negan will continue to use hunting as therapy, and that is far from a healthy coping mechanism. Rick's been there, done that, brought back the souvenir t-shirt.

Rick would rather give both Carl and Judith the Talk than bring any of this up to Negan. He is terrified that raising the subject will result in anger and hurt feelings, and while Rick has no fears that Negan might harm him or the kids, he knows very well Negan will direct that anger inward. And Rick knows this because it's exactly what he himself would do (and has done on multiple occasions); he sees the empty bottles of alcohol in the trash and the dwindling number of pills in the Percocet bottle, smells the weed on Negan's clothes in the laundry hamper, the aroma of pot clinging to the futon. While Rick doubts Negan would follow in Lucille's footsteps and punch his own ticket, he wouldn't bet the house on it, as the saying goes.

"Have you thought about seeing a doctor?" Rick says, and the question feels like a risk.

"You mean a shrink?"

Rick shakes his head and meets Negan's gaze. "He could have passed something to you," he says in a low voice.

The slight tension around Negan's eyes and on his brow conveys his understanding.

"Just make sure. For me?" Rick wants to take that last part back. He can't tell if it's treading too close to manipulation. _If you really loved me,_ that sentence seems to imply, and Rick wants as little in common with the Bitch as possible. He shakes his head again, as though shaking away the words on an Etch-a-Sketch. "For us, so we can…"

"Alright," Negan says, and while his tone is somewhat of a slamming door, there's a softness to it, like Rick's maintained sexual interest is important to him.

"And I—" Rick stops himself. Maybe he's pushing his luck with a second request. Negan has already agreed—with zero argument—to get tested. Baby steps. Maybe—

"Spit it out," Negan says, a crack of a smile on his lips.

So Rick does. "I miss you. Upstairs. With me. And I don't blame you if you never wanna go in that room again. I get it. But that bad energy is gone. I cleansed the room, burned a mix of holy water, cedar oil, and powdered sage."

"So that's what that smell is," Negan says. "I thought you were blazin' it in there."

Rick chuckles. "I wouldn't steal from your stash."

"What's mine is yours."

Rick places a hand over the Colt tattoo on the inside of Negan's forearm. Touching Negan, confronting difficult subjects: Rick is taking a lot of risks today. "He was cremated, and, yeah, I made sure of it. He can't come back."

"You did a solo salt-and-burn?"

"It was on the death certificate. And in the obituary. And his ex-wife confirmed it."

Negan's eyes go wide. "You talked to her?"

"She called me on the work line, apologized for the trouble he caused. I figured she owed me an answer or two." Rick's conversation with Jocelyn Blake filled some of the gaps in his knowledge concerning Philip, but overall it was the typical "obsession turned violent" story he's seen and heard many times before. Rick has no intention of discussing it with Negan. What good would it possibly do to tell Negan that Philip Blake had been troubled from the start, that difficulties in his marriage collided with the changes in Negan's life and music? Would it ease Negan's mind to know it was random, meaningless chaos? Probably not.

Negan nods stiffly, as though showing too much agreement might propel Rick into discussing those answers with him.

Rick changes the subject. "I know you need time. But I don't want you sitting down here thinkin' I don't want you up there. If that's ever crossed your mind—"

"It hasn't." The confidence in Negan's voice takes Rick by surprise. "If you want me to be a big boy and sleep in my own bed again, I guess I can abide."

"Only if you're ready."

"If not now, when?" Negan's smile aims for carefree, but it misses the mark and only looks sad.

* * *

Negan presses his hands onto the mattress. "Oh shit, memory foam!"

"Didn't think you'd mind," Rick says.

The bedroom has been completely rearranged. The bed now resides near the window, jutting out into the room. The bureau has been repainted a greyish blue color and pushed against the far wall near the entrance to the master bathroom. Rick isn't much of an interior decorator, but he seems to be avoiding the placement of furniture in the locations where Terrible Things happened, which leaves a lot of empty space in the room. He's trying, though, and Negan appreciates the effort in ways he can't convey with words.

"Hell no," Negan says. "It's about time we replaced that old thing anyway. Fuckin' spring kept poking me in the ribs."

He manages a shower in the master bathroom, making use of Rick's shampoo and soap, since his own are down the hall in the kids' bathroom. While he stands under the hot spray of water, he tries not to think about the last time he was in here, about how he'd only had time to baby-wipe away his rapist's sperm from his t-shirt, stomach, thighs, and ass before the cops and paramedics showed up. Instead, he thinks about the numerous times he's been pressed against the shower tile, getting fucked or sucked by Rick. One horrible event shouldn't besmirch—to use Rick's thesaurus word—the whole house. If Negan were to stack his memories here in piles, there would be a tower's worth of pleasant recollections, and only a handful of bad ones. But the bad ones are so damn heavy, and he doesn't know how long it will take to plaster over them with new, good memories, like covering old wallpaper.

After the shower, he digs through the bureau for whatever's left after Rick brought down a hamper of his clothes to the basement. He settles on a Saviors t-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs. His legs might be a bit cold tonight, but if he's spooning with Rick he'll have enough body heat. He dresses in the bathroom, and the mirror provides him with a clear view of his healing bullet wound. The small patch of repaired skin looks like a chewed piece of cinnamon bubble gum, the flesh colored a heated pink against the peach tone of his upper arm.

Negan decides against bandaging the wound tonight; it's healed enough that it won't split open if the skin pulls, and giving it air to breathe might accelerate any more healing it has left to do. He pulls on his t-shirt, then frowns at his reflection. His cross tattoo is a mottled mess thanks to the uneven patch of new skin. He'll have to get the ink redone in the future, or resign himself to never wearing short sleeves again. Or maybe he ought to wear the scar with pride.

 _Survival ain't nothing to be ashamed of._

Negan joins Rick in bed, and the familiar heat of him brings comfort. Rick cuddles into him; Negan doesn't pull away, in fact curls an arm around him, fingers playing with the hem of Rick's t-shirt. This is a closeness they have not shared in what feels like a long time.

Throughout the night, Negan wakes up intermittently, roused by nightmares and the crawling unease of being in this room. Each time he wakes he finds Rick lying beside him, safe and sound, and Negan relaxes.


	32. Chapter 32

The following Monday, Negan's test results come back clean. He plucks the half-full bottle of blackberry wine out of the fridge and pours two glasses. He sets one down in front of Rick, who's sitting at the dining room table with his laptop.

"I'm as clean as I'll ever be," Negan says, grinning as he sits in the empty chair beside Rick. "Talk about a blue-eyed miracle." His clean bill of sexual health has reinvigorated his interest in the act, now that he knows Philip Blake has only infected his mind and not his body.

Rick looks at him over the computer, smiles and accepts the glass. "That's worth celebrating."

"Damn right." Negan takes a long drink from his own glass, fills it up again; Rick, instead, takes a dainty sip. "So how 'bout a blowjob?"

Rick half-chokes on the wine for a moment before composing himself. "Well, if you insist…" He leans back in his chair, spreads his legs. "Go ahead."

Negan laughs, and the sound is strange in his own ears. How long has it been since he genuinely laughed at something? "You're a real fuckin' comedian, babe."

"I try," says Rick. He takes another drink and taps some keys on the laptop.

"Are you lookin' at porn _again_? If you wanna see some quality cock, just ask and you shall fucking receive."

A smile quirks at the corner of Rick's mouth, as though he's trying very hard not to laugh at Negan's immaturity. "Y'know, these things are good for more than just porn. I'm looking into bringing on some associates. Hunters. What d'you think about Daryl and Merle?"

Negan snorts a laugh. "You are crackin' me up today."

"I'm serious. They're more experienced than us. We should be workin' for them."

"Yeah, no fuckin' thanks."

"So that's a no?" Something in Rick's gaze makes Negan reconsider.

"Look, if you wanna send the Devil's Rejects to do our dirty work, by all means," Negan says, swirling the wine in his glass like a real goddamn gentleman. "But I want a piece of the action every once in a while."

A knock at the door sets Negan's nerves on edge. He jerks in the direction of the sound, expecting Philip Blake to burst through and finish what he started. "Who the fuck—"

"Want me to get it?" Rick offers.

Negan can't accept that, because it would feel like defeat, admitting that he's too scared to even answer his own fucking door _. And if you can't do that, well, you're in a hell of a lot of trouble._

If it is Philip Blake on the other side of that door—impossible, Negan knows, but yet—better that Negan answers it instead of Rick.

"I got it." Negan finishes the wine in his glass and heads for the door. He peers through the peephole, expecting to see the black hole of a gun barrel, but he recognizes Simon's angry mustache and receding hairline. "The fuck are you doing here?" Negan asks, throwing open the door. He had no idea Simon knew where he lived since the move.

Simon gives him a cheeky grin. "I thought I'd drop by, check on my brother from another mother. You haven't been answering my texts."

"Clingy much?"

Simon shrugs, as though offering no argument. "You've been through some shit. Can't blame me for being worried."

"Well, I'm just dandy," Negan says. He hears the lie in his voice, wonders if Simon hears it too.

And, judging from the skeptical look on Simon's face, he does. "You gonna let me in, or are we gonna stand here like a couple of assholes?"

Negan steps aside and lets Simon into the house. Simon greets Rick, who has diverted his attention back to the Macbook.

"Simon," Rick says. "You wanna stay for lunch?"

"That's real hospitable of you, Rick. Must be that Southern charm Negan's always swooning about."

Rick shoots Negan a look, as if to say, _You swoon over me to your friends?_

Negan makes a face. He doesn't know what the fuck Simon's talking about.

Simon pulls up a chair at the table, drops down into it as though he belongs here. He sees the wine bottle and glasses on the table. "What's the occasion?" He refills Negan's glass and helps himself to a long swallow.

"I don't need an occasion to day-drink in my own damn house," Negan says.

"You don't, but somethin' tells me Rick does." Simon tips the base of the wine glass at Rick's own.

Negan feels claustrophobic, closed in by Simon's casual attitude and ability to read him so easily. "You don't know him like I do," he says, snatching the glass out of Simon's hand. This gesture brings Negan's wounds into Simon's view, and he sees Simon's gaze snag on the closed red mouth of a gash on his bicep, and on the shadowy bluish-purple bruise in the crook of Negan's arm.

"Damn, is that the damage?"

Negan can't set the glass down to cover the wound with his hand without looking suspicious. All he can do is awkwardly cross his arm over the limb in question like an uncomfortable dinner party guest. "The least of it."

"What's with the bruise? You start shootin' up?" Simon barks a laugh, as though this would be the funniest thing.

"That'd be a pain in the ass. I got difficult veins." The nurse taking Negan's blood had said as much after tying off his bicep and flicking the inside of his arm, as though attempting to awaken his sleeping vein. His blood had run like sludge in the narrow tube, unwilling to leave his body. "I had a doctor's appointment," Negan says, then, to keep Simon from picking at that one: "Why are you here anyway? I was about to get some quality head from Rick." 

Rick gives Negan a look that says he remembers agreeing to no such thing but isn't opposed to the idea.

Simon is unfazed by the mention of Negan and Rick's sex life, which disappoints Negan. He'd been banking on that tiny seed of discomfort buried in Simon's head to send him fleeing. "He can polish your knob any damn time"—Simon looks at Rick—"no offense. I've got real, solid stuff for our next album." He spreads his hands. "I know that's usually your bread and butter, but Eugene did the remixes, so why not let me take the driver's seat for a bit?"

Simon's eagerness makes Negan feel guilty for where this conversation is going. "Hey, if you wanna spread your wings and do a solo thing, go ahead. Or collaborate with Eugene. I got no problem with that. Teamwork makes the dream work."

"I'm not interested in going out on my own. I just wanna see what you think of the stuff I cooked up. You always run your stuff by me first. But I'm a rhythm guy, and you're more about the melody. I need your expertise."

"You don't need me," Negan says with a crack of a laugh. "Call up Jesus and run it by him."

"A lesser man might think you're trying to spare my feelings. But I know better. You don't give a shit about my feelings." Simon says this with zero malice or resentment, just a simple statement of fact.

And he's right. Negan has no use for coddling his peers when it comes to their craft, so why is he dancing around the subject now?

Negan takes a drink from the glass he's been holding between himself and Simon like a shield. He sets the glass on the table, leans against the kitchen island. "Alright, then I'll just come out with it. I'm done. You're just the Saviors now. Have fun."

Rick turns in his chair to look at Negan. His face is incredulous, disbelieving, and Negan can only return his gaze for the briefest moment.

Simon titters out a nervous laugh. "Good one. Now, seriously, what the fuck?"

"Do I look like I'm not serious?" Negan challenges. "Some shit-for-brains asshole tries to kill me and my family over my music? Fuck it. That shit is not worth it."

Simon opens his mouth, closes it, tries again. He looks like a dying fish.

Rick's expression is a mix of heartbroken and furious, and Negan knows they'll argue about this as soon as Simon's out the door.

"And, hey," Negan adds, "we had a good run. A few years shy of thirty ain't bad. That's a hell of a lot longer than most. Enough to land us in the Hall of Fame eventually."

"So you're just quitting?" Simon asks.

"I think I'm entitled after the pile of shit I just climbed out of."

"You didn't quit after Emily. Or after Lucille."

Negan sets his jaw, irritated that Simon would use his lost loved ones as argumentative leverage. "That was different."

"Is it writer's block?" Simon wonders.

"No, I'm bursting with ideas. But what's the point of putting them on paper? That crazy dickhead tried to kill me—and, let's not forget, my kid—because he hated our new shit and loved our old shit. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? Anything I put out is gonna get me in some jerkoff's literal crosshairs. So, again, I say fuck it. But if you wanna keep going, be my guest. You can keep the name and play our songs. Shouldn't be too hard to find a new singer and lead guitarist."

"Fuck, is he serious?" Simon asks Rick, who looks equally confused. He looks at Negan again. "Have you told Gregory about this? Or Dwight? Or anyone?"

"No, not yet," Negan admits, since you don't hand your boss the resignation papers unless you intend to follow through. Officially pulling the plug on his musical career is a step Negan isn't entirely ready for yet. "Keep it under wraps for a bit, alright?"

"Alright. Shit…" Simon scrubs a hand over his head, his expression dazed and unseeing, as though his doctor's just told him he has a terminal illness. "I hope you change your mind."

Negan hopes so too.

After Simon says his goodbyes and takes his leave, Rick focuses on Negan. "Were you serious, or was all that just for him?"

"I think I'm plenty serious. Don't you?"

Rick makes a noncommittal shrug. "It's a big decision. How come you didn't mention it earlier?"

"Fuck if I know."

"You thought I'd try to change your mind?"

"Maybe that's part of it." Negan begins to pace through the kitchen and dining room. He senses an argument brewing, and it's best to keep moving in situations like this.

"And what's so wrong with that?"

"'Cause it's easy to tell somebody 'do what you love' when it doesn't affect you."

"We're married. I'd say it affects me."

Negan stops, faces him. "He didn't try to kill you. You weren't home. He didn't—" Negan cuts that one off. Nope. Not going there. Not saying that shit out loud.

"He threatened my family," Rick counters. "It could've been me at home with Judy instead of you. Then what?"

"Then you'd be dead." Negan knows this for a fact, knows Philip Blake wouldn't have held Rick at gunpoint until Negan got home, wouldn't have forced Negan to choose him over Rick.

"So don't you think I have a stake in this, too?" Rick says, turning in his chair to face Negan. "What's your plan for after? If you're giving this up, there's gotta be somethin' to take its place."

Negan folds his arms over his chest. He's ashamed to admit he hasn't planned that far ahead. "I thought about working with Eugene, writing music for other artists, but… Damn, you can't hide shit these days. People'll find out I wrote this song or that, and one of them'll be crazy enough to try to kill me for 'selling out' or whatever dumb bullshit they think justifies it."

"Negan, the chances of this happening again are… I think you'd have better odds winning the lottery."

"A hell of a gamble."

"We're not talkin' fifty-fifty odds here." Rick turns back to the laptop, types something in. "One in 176 million. Buy a couple tickets."

Negan isn't convinced, though Rick's making a decent argument.

Rick faces him again. "Look, I made sure our address is unlisted, since that's how he found us. It slipped my mind before, but it won't be that easy to find us again. That changes the odds. It's not impossible, just improbable. Improbable enough that it's"—Rick pauses, searching for a kinder word—"unwise to plan your life around it."

Negan sighs and sits beside him. He pours another glass of wine. "So you're willing to put our kids in danger?"

Rick's brow tightens, and he types and clicks on the Macbook. "We put them in danger every day just taking them to school. The odds of dying in a car accident are one in 6,700. But we don't even think about that. Besides, he wouldn't have killed Judith or Carl."

"How do you know that?"

"It's psychology. He kills them, and he's got no leverage. The kids were his bargaining chips. He could say 'do what I want or I'll kill you,' and you probably would've taken the chance if it was just your life at stake. But 'do what I want or I'll kill your loved ones' makes people compliant."

Negan feels manipulated and violated all over again just remembering it. He takes a drink.

"And if he really wanted to go after the kids, he could have. He knew my name. He could have found where they went to school. Carl would've been suspicious of a stranger, but not Judith."

Negan shudders. "Shut the fuck up. This isn't making me feel better."

"Sorry." Rick smiles and lays a hand over Negan's forearm. "Just think about it. Take all the time you need, but don't make a decision until you're sure."

Negan nods. On some level, Simon knows he's just blowing smoke, that if given enough time and space Negan will come to his senses. And Negan hopes he's right; he can't imagine a version of his life where music, in some way, is not a part of it. Because how do you simply _give up_ something that has carried you through life's most difficult times?


	33. Chapter 33

For the sake of tradition, Negan took the kids around the neighborhood for candy on Halloween. They coordinated costumes, this year's theme being Gravity Falls: Judith was Mabel, Carl was Dipper, and Negan was Grunkle Stan. Rick wanted to join them, but he was busy overseeing the expansion of the Grimes & Associates office now that Daryl and Merle Dixon will officially be employees starting in January.

"Better get a head start on it now," Rick said, "'cause we'll be too busy during the holidays."

Negan agreed with that and took upon the role of Primary Dad to the kids while Rick dealt with the complicated business of reorganizing.

"Since Dad's hiring people, are you guys gonna teach me how to hunt?" Carl asks while they're rounding the corner of the next street down.

"Something something child labor laws," Negan says.

"That's not very Grunkle Stan of you," Carl points out.

"Well, it's a moot point anyway, since your dad hired actual professionals. Besides, I thought you wanted to be a rock star or a video game designer."

Carl shrugs. "You've got a side gig."

"You're outvoted. Not 'til you're eighteen," Negan relents, because he thinks—hopes, really—that Carl will grow out of this desire to hunt and will be preoccupied with something else by that point.

Carl huffs a sigh, but he doesn't argue.

When they get home, Rick's car is parked out front, but Negan doesn't see him in the living room or the kitchen. He must be upstairs, Negan figures, and he dutifully helps Judith sort through her candy. She is unusually picky when it comes to sweets, and she refuses anything with almonds or coconut on principle; Almond Joy bars are her enemies. Paydays and Mounds are a big no. Raisinets are gross because, according to Judith, "It's a trick. It's still fruit even if there's chocolate on it."

Negan agrees, though he has a fondness for chocolate-covered strawberries, since they were one of Lucille's favorite snacks.

"Dude, you get stuck with the worst candy," Carl says, dumping his own rejected pieces into Negan's pile.

"Joke's on you, I love—"

"If you make a nut joke, I'm getting emancipated from this family."

Negan laughs harder than he has in a long time.

* * *

After Carl has gone upstairs and Judith has been tucked into bed, Negan finds Rick asleep in the bedroom. He slips into the shower, and by the time he's out, Rick is awake and typing something on his phone. Rick diverts his attention to Negan, possibly intrigued by the sight of him in with a towel wrapped around his hips.

"How'd it go tonight?" Rick asks.

"Just fine. Carl threatened emancipation over my dirty jokes." Negan chuckles to himself. "He's all talk."

Rick agrees. "He loves you. Though he's got a funny way of showing it."

"I think he gets that from you," Negan teases.

"Not how I showed you yesterday, that's for sure," Rick teases right back; he'd blown Negan yesterday afternoon, right against the kitchen island, and Negan was so surprised by Rick's ability to deep-throat him, as though he'd forgotten, that he came almost immediately when Rick's mouth touched the base of his cock.

Negan grins and discards the towel with a casual flick of his wrist, a move he has performed numerous times. Rick inhales a little gasp, his lips parted in awe; the bedroom light are off, but the moonlight leaking in through the curtains gives him a decent view of the goods. As Negan strolls toward the bed, Rick drops his phone on the night table and pulls him in. Negan feels Rick's hands everywhere: over his back, down his arms, up his thighs. Rick mouths at Negan's jaw, and there's a scrape of teeth and stubble against skin that makes Negan purr. Rick guides a hand between Negan's legs, fingers curling around his cock.

Negan's hips twitch. "C'mon, baby, that's too easy," he says, covering Rick's hand with his own.

"Thought you were easy." Rick gives him a little squeeze.

"Shit," Negan groans, and the small smile this brings to Rick's mouth makes him even harder. "Don't be an asshole, honey."

Rick removes his hand from Negan's dick. "Sorry." There's a slightly panicked look in his eyes, like he's afraid he's done something wrong.

"You're alright. I just don't wanna blow my load from a handjob." Negan pulls Rick's t-shirt up and over his head, dips down to kiss the tattoo on his chest. "Hot as fuck," he murmurs against Rick's skin. Rick moans and arches his back, drags his hands through Negan's damp hair. Hearing the tightness in Rick's voice and feeling the pull of his hands feeds Negan's own excitement. He wants everything Rick can give him, wants to be pulled apart and reassembled until he is new again. Maybe it's wrong to want that after what happened, but Negan can't help it. He has needs, and it doesn't seem fair that a bad experience should take that from him.

Rick doesn't coddle or ask questions, just lets Negan straddle his hips and sink down. Taking him in feels like slipping into a familiar dream. Negan swears and sighs, watches the color rise in Rick's cheeks. Negan rides him with no hurry, no impatience, and Rick eventually slows his frantic hips to match their new pace. Negan folds over him, captures Rick's mouth beneath his own. They move together, slow and sure. Being with Rick is safe, familiar, and Negan can't connect this to the unpleasantness, not with the way Rick moves inside of him, kisses him, glides his hands over Negan's skin like Rick will burn up if he can't touch all of him.

Rick's mouth is like silk against the slope of Negan's neck, down the line of his jaw, over his chin. Negan grunts a shocked little noise when Rick clutches his ass and pulls him forward. "Slow your fuckin' roll, babe," he murmurs against Rick's mouth before straightening up, sitting tall on Rick's cock like a king on a throne. Rick lies beneath him, flushed and twisted up with arousal. Negan rocks his hips, taking Rick with him, and Rick whines. "I know you're a two-pump chump, but we're gonna do this nice and slow."

Rick's heels slide across the sheets with a whisper of cotton. He moves a hand from Negan's hip to his cock, his thumb circling the head. He gazes up at Negan with a flirtatious lilt on his mouth and mischief in his eyes. "Better get started, or we'll be here all night."

Negan grins. "And wouldn't that be a goddamn shame?" He savors the low ache as he moves, each rotation drawing a cracked gasp out of Rick and making him squirm. Rick shoves into him, impatient, his hand stroking and squeezing Negan's dick. "Rick, for fuck's sake," Negan sighs, and it takes all he has not to fall into the hot clash of Rick's hips. He tips his head back, quaking as electricity crackles up his spine. Rick is huge and hot inside of him, and Negan thinks he can feel Rick's heartbeat through the pulsing throb of his cock.

Rick doesn't stop, but he makes an effort to slow down, matching Negan's careful pace. Negan shivers and bows over Rick; he's close, feeling that tight pull down below. He groans Rick's name and swears as time spins out. He comes over Rick's hand and stomach, but Rick doesn't notice, because he's breaking too. The spill of sensation brings Negan back to that awful moment, but Rick's sighing his name over and over, fingers digging into Negan's hips like spurs, and the fear melts away, replaced by love.

Negan slumps over him, plunging his face into Rick's sweat-damp hair. His muscles are shaky and loose; all he can do is turn his head to watch Rick taste him on his fingers.

"That's fuckin' hot," Negan says.

Rick smiles and licks a sticky finger.

"Keep that up, and you'll get me hard all over again."

"Wouldn't that be a shame?" Rick smirks, winds his arms around Negan's waist.

"A shame for your ass, maybe."

"You don't hear me complainin'."

Negan chuckles and rolls off of him, settling in the empty space beside Rick in the bed before sliding an arm around him. He is overwhelmed by how easy it's been for them to resume their sex lives after the incident. Rick's probably spent a lot of time getting reacquainted with his hand during the last few weeks, but he has never pushed Negan, only given him time to come to grips with what's happened. A feeling circles Negan, something approaching guilt and shame, because he doesn't think he's supposed to want these things anymore. Like hell he's going to associate orgasms with violation and shame and anger forever, but it hasn't even been a month. Is something wrong with him?

This is probably a subject he should discuss with Rick, but they're having such a nice moment here, wrapped up in each other, and Negan doesn't want to spoil it with his dumb bullshit.

So he doesn't, and they fall into a contented sleep.

* * *

Negan wakes abruptly in the middle of the night, and he lies there, listening for a distressed cry from either Carl or Judith. Why else would he wake up as though he'd been jerked out of sleep like a trout caught on a fisherman's pole? Beside him, Rick is fast asleep, and his steady, quiet breaths offer Negan comfort. Rick has rolled onto his side, no longer cuddled against Negan, but the tantalizing line of his naked back is a treat.

Negan keeps his ears perked, searching for whatever sound might have roused him. But the house is almost silent save for the soft hum of power and central heating. His dreams were a hazy blur, if he had any at all, so he doesn't think he awakened to escape a nightmare.

As Negan shifts onto his back, his gaze searches the dark bedroom, finally settling on the far wall where the bureau was moved and the master bathroom's open door beckons like the mouth of a cave. Through the slivers of moonlight falling through the curtains behind the bed, Negan thinks he sees a man standing in the shadows.

Negan remains impossibly still, as though he's a child frightened of some indiscernable monster lurking under the bed. He finds himself incapable of making even the tiniest whimper, and his thought processes have blue-screened like a faulty computer.

 _An error has been detected, and your brain has been shut down to prevent damage to your psyche._

The longer Negan stares at the shape on the other side of the room, he begins to see features blurred through the shadows. Dark eyes staring through him. The bridge of a nose. The jut of a chin. Arms hanging at its sides. Boot-clad feet on the floor.

It's Philip, Negan realizes with a sickening wave of nausea. He was never cremated, and he's come back to kill Rick, to become Negan's husband through Stockholm syndrome and sheer force of will.

Negan is acutely aware of his bare skin against the sheets, and his own nakedness makes him feel even more exposed to this intruder. He continues to stare, unwilling—and, perhaps, unable—to take his eyes off his visitor, fearing that to do so would be the last thing he ever does. A dying flare of thought flickers to life in Negan's brain. He should shake Rick awake instead of just lying here paralyzed.

But there couldn't truly be someone else in the room with them. The man Negan sees is nothing but shadows and imagination. And it can't be Philip. Rick said he was cremated, and what reason would Rick have to lie about that? If anyone died with unfinished business, it was Philip Blake. He was a prime candidate to become a vengeful spirit, and Rick would know that. If Rick knew Philip Blake wasn't cremated, he would have dug him up and done the job himself. And Rick spoke with Blake's poor ex-wife, which means he made damn sure Philip didn't have a plastic bag of his own baby teeth lying around or a donated kidney doing its thing in some unsuspecting recipient, no bullshit loophole objects to which Blake's spirit could be tied.

If the man on the other side of the room is simply shadows, what, then, awakened Negan?

He supposes it's possible something simple severed the veil of sleep. Maybe the act of Rick turning over, or Negan himself rolling onto his side. A car starting up or driving by outside. Shit, maybe a fucking bird crashed into the window like something in a Windex commercial. Any of those explanations are far more plausible than Philip Blake coming back from cremation.

And yet…

 _You're nuts,_ Negan tells himself. _You heard voices, and now you're seeing shit. You've always been half-crazy from the start, so maybe you've finally cracked, but the silver lining means that dickhead isn't really here._

Through the combination of shadows and moonlight, Negan sees the man—Philip?—grinning at him.

"No," Negan rasps in a thin, screamy whisper caught between anger and terror, "you're not fucking real. You're dead. You're just ashes in a fucking box."

Rick stirs beside him, murmuring his name in a half-asleep question.

Without taking his eyes off the shape, Negan reaches for the night table, blindly searching for Rick's phone that he'd left there. He gets his fingers around the phone and draws it into his lap. He's about to turn on the flashlight app, but he hesitates. If he shines that light and finds someone's actually standing there, what's his next move?

 _If someone was really there, don't you think he would've killed you by now?_

Negan drops his gaze for a half-second, just long enough to tap the flashlight icon on the phone menu. He raises the phone, and the light blasts against the wall. No one's standing there.

 _Maybe he slipped under the bed when you took your eyes off him. Or maybe he's hiding in the bathroom, just hoping you'll stumble in blindly for a piss._

"What's wrong?" Rick mumbles, his voice cracked with sleep as he rolls onto his back. One of his eyes is screwed shut to block out the flashlight.

Negan doesn't know how to answer that without Rick questioning his mental health. "Where's your EMF?"

"In the drawer."

Negan uses the flashlight to help him locate the EMF meter in the nightstand drawer. He switches on the meter, gives it a moment to find a reading. But nothing comes up, at least nothing to indicate supernatural activity.

"You okay?"

Another question Negan can't answer. He switches off the phone and EMF, sets them in their respective places. On shaking legs, he slides out of bed and crosses the floor to the bureau. He pulls open the top drawer.

"Negan," Rick groans, like he's not awake enough to deal with whatever bullshit Negan's got going on. For an ex-cop, he's slow to wake up sometimes. "What's wrong?"

"Everything's fine," Negan says, stepping into his shorts and throwing on a threadbare t-shirt. "I just… I need a minute."

Negan flees the room and hears the quiet shift of sheets as Rick turns over. Downstairs, he finds the liquor cabinet and pours himself a glass of whiskey. It stings and soothes, and he sits at the table in the darkness with the bottle of Jack. A goddamn cliché.

Rick joins him ten minutes later. He's wearing sweatpants and a Saviors t-shirt, the latter of which Negan finds impossibly sweet. "You doin' alright?" Rick asks, though he has to see the answer to that one right in front of his face. But Negan knows Rick's just trying to get him talking.

"I'm having a hard fucking month," Negan says with a bitter laugh.

"Another bad dream?"

"I saw him. I fucking saw him in our goddamn bedroom." Negan wants to crush the glass in his hand, just to get rid of this tension and anger swirling inside of him, but thinks better of it. Can't play guitar with a sliced-up hand. "And he wasn't a ghost, but it couldn't have really been him. I'm losing my fucking mind. Seeing shit."

Rick looks at him, his gaze not pitying but understanding. "You've been through hell. After Lori died, I heard her voice for a while. Dreamed about finding her in that cave. I saw the wendigo in every dark corner. You're not crazy. It's just trauma, and it'll pass. At least it did for me. The worst of it, anyway."

Negan takes another drink, steadying himself for what he's about to say. Everything from that awful day has been eating him from the inside out like acid; he has to purge it, or the toxic soup will turn him to sludge. If he keeps all of this inside, maybe he really will crack, and what becomes of them then? Rick's a good man, but he won't stick around for that. Not with the kids at stake.

"Alright, Rick, fasten your seatbelt," Negan says as he refills the glass. "This is a one-night-only show where I lay out all my shit. Keep the lights off and the booze flowing, and I think I can tell it."

So he does. Negan tells Rick everything he remembers about that horrible day—from the first time he stared down the barrel of that pistol right up to that final moment when Rick stumbled into the dark heart of their marriage, into the one mad secret they must keep between them. Rick listens without interrupting, his face creased with hurt and anger and disbelief; occasionally his mouth does that twitchy-snarly thing. But despite the obvious pain it causes him to hear all of this, Rick does not ask Negan to stop.

Negan downs two glasses throughout his recollecting—and reliving—of those events, stopping frequently to wipe at his streaming eyes. By the time he's finished, his chest hitches with manic little half-sobs he can't seem to control.

"Goddamn it," Negan growls, downing the last of the whiskey in his glass. "Thought I could make it through that."

"You did," Rick reminds him. He seems at a loss for anything more to say.

Negan examines his empty glass and opts for a refill. "Guess you're glad you killed him, huh?"

Rick shakes his head. "I didn't."

"The fuck you didn't. You can sell that suicide bullshit to the cops, but not to me."

"I wanted to kill him," Rick admits, and his expression hardens. "More than anything. But I knew I couldn't. The state doesn't have castle doctrine. In practice the courts uphold it, but generally it's case by case. They could argue you had a duty to retreat or call our use of deadly force into question. But if he shoots himself, there's no crime to prosecute. The bullets match his gun. The gun's his. Prints are his. He's got GSR on his hands, and I don't. The trajectory matches up." Rick shrugs. "Cut and dry."

Negan grins at Rick's dark ingenuity. "Damn, you are somethin' else. Can I marry you again?"

A faint smile twitches on Rick's mouth. "Fourth time's the charm." He drags Negan's glass toward him, takes a drink for himself.

"How'd you get him to eat his gun?"

"Didn't have to. He was all about pride. The last way he'd want to go out is with me pulling the trigger."

Negan supposes that's true, but he has a little trouble believing it. Why would that prick make anything easy on Negan after putting him through hell? But Negan can only believe it must have happened that way, since the police haven't crawled up his ass about it.

"But you know what the worst part is?" Negan says after a moment. "His brains were all over our bedroom carpet, and you made damn sure he was cremated, but he's still here. Every time I hear a knock on the door or a noise in the middle of the night, or see a shadow move on the wall, I know it's him coming back to eat me alive. The real ghosts? You can't salt and burn those." He tilts the glass, studying its contents before taking one last, long swallow. "But you can try to drink the bastards away, right?" He offers a weak laugh that Rick counters with an equally weak smile.

Negan stands up and heads into the kitchen. He sets the empty glass in the sink and replaces the bottle of Jack in the liquor cabinet. "So there you go. It's all out in the open now," he says, knowing Rick will be relieved to hear this. And maybe there's a sense of relief within Negan as well, as if unearthing his buried secret has helped him in some way. Rick didn't come into this conversation totally blind; he knew enough of what might have happened to not be completely shell-shocked by Negan's admissions.

Rick goes to him, wrapping his arms around Negan's waist, offering the only comfort he knows how. Negan chuckles an amused sound and holds him close. "Don't worry about me, Pretty Ricky. We've all got shit to get over."

They stay that way for a while until Negan pulls him upstairs, where they sleep like the dead.

* * *

Carl hurries back to his bedroom as his parents head for the stairs. He heard every word of Negan's confession, and it has shaken him.


	34. Chapter 34

_November 2015_

On Negan's suggestion, the Grimes host Thanksgiving at their home, despite Rick's feeble protests.

"We don't have enough chairs," he said the week before, baffled by the prospect of fitting that many people at the dinner table.

Negan scoffed like that didn't matter. "We're not doing this all formal like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. We've got the living room, the kitchen, and even the basement if we need it. Plenty of room."

Rick cocked an eyebrow, stirring his morning coffee. "So what you're really hosting is a party that just so happens to be on Thanksgiving."

"If that's what you wanna call it," Negan said with a shrug. "I'll take care of all the cooking, if that's what's holding you back."

"How many people are we talking here?"

Negan counted them off on his fingers. "Glenn and Maggie, of course. Tara and Rosita. My bandmates, though Dwight and Jesus might have other plans. I figure Simon and Eugene are sad and lonely and could use a little social interaction. Maybe we could invite Clem and her dad, if Carl wouldn't be too embarrassed."

Carl, who had been eating breakfast at the kitchen table with them, flushed red. "That… would be really cool if you promise not to embarrass me."

"I'll be on my best behavior," Negan said with a grin that meant, in fact, he would not.

Rick saw no real reason to deny Negan this; although it was a grand gesture, it wasn't much different than what Rick himself would do for Thanksgiving if Lori were alive. He knew Negan took the task upon himself as a distraction, a placeholder in the wake of quitting music, and while Rick didn't exactly agree with Negan's coping methods, he couldn't complain, not when it meant Negan would be spending time with people instead of shutting himself away in the basement.

So Rick agreed, and on Thanksgiving the house is full of guests and delicious aromas. The dining room table and kitchen island are set with platters of food, like stops in a buffet line. There are rectangular pans full of cornbread stuffing, a hashbrown casserole, and what looks like french fries topped with ground turkey and gravy. There's sweet potato casserole, pecan cobbler, pumpkin cheesecake, and a cola-glazed baked ham for the main course.

Everyone Negan invited showed up, which blows Rick's mind, though when he really thinks about it he's not that surprised. Last year, the Rhees spent Thanksgiving with Maggie's family out-of-state; Tara and Rosita aren't on the greatest terms with their folks, so Negan's invitation must have been a godsend for them. As for Negan's bandmates, Rick doesn't know if they had other plans, but they all know about the incident with Philip Blake—excluding the more salacious details—and probably wanted to be here as a show of solidarity for Negan.

The basement has become the central hub for watching football; Dwight, Simon, Aaron, Lee, and Glenn are gathered in the various seats in front of the wide-screen TV. Soda cans, beer bottles, and paper plates in various states of fullness decorate the coffee table. Upstairs, the living room brings Jesus, Maggie, Tara, Rosita, and the kids together.

In the kitchen, Sherry mixes cocktails for herself and Negan; their glasses have layers of ice cubes and bright red cranberries for garnish. "All of this must have taken you forever to cook," she says, sounding awed by his dedication.

"Just yesterday and this morning. Plus the kids are on break, so they've got nothing better to do than help me out." Negan kicks back a swallow of his drink, licks his lips. "Goddamn, that's good shit." He sees Rick loitering in the dining room. "C'mere, honey, get shit-faced with me."

Rick approaches him, and Negan holds out the glass. Rick finishes off the sweet concoction; it tastes like berry soda with a kick. "Not bad."

Sherry refills Negan's empty glass, pouring in triple sec, white rum, raspberry liqueur, cranberry juice, and topping it off with sparkling water. A bartender before she married Dwight, Sherry must have been in charge of bringing the party's booze. She did not disappoint.

"Rick, thank you for inviting us," she says to him. "The invitation came from Negan, but I know you signed off on it."

Rick nods in agreement. "I thought it would be nice. Last year we kept it real simple. Just the four of us." Last year had been their first Thanksgiving together, and Negan once again took the cooking upon himself. They had a small dinner of pulled pork sandwiches, stuffing, green bean casserole (a Southern recipe Negan claimed was "a taste of home" for Rick's benefit), and a chocolate cake decorated to look like a turkey, courtesy of Judith and Carl.

Lee comes upstairs for a second plate of food. As he's piling ham and potatoes onto his plate, he says, "Rick. Negan. Me and Clem appreciate your hospitality." Lee often seems overwhelmed by life as a single parent to a teenage girl; since his ascent from godfather to legal guardian after Clementine's parents died in a car accident, holidays are probably hard for the two of them.

"Don't worry about it," Negan says. "Pleasure's all mine. Figured we ought'a get to know each other since our kids are sort of dating."

Lee's expression shifts, almost unreadable. "As much as I like Carl, I don't want Clem gettin' involved with hunting. I could forgive the first time—sneaking out is almost a rite of passage for a teenager—but now that this monster stuff is all over the news…"

Since Carl showed Rick the article about the Shenandoah National Park incident, reports about the mysterious creature discovered there have been non-stop news fodder. This, in turn, prompted more stories of cryptid sightings across the world, and if there's one thing the media knows how to do, it's stir up fear. But the oversaturation of news stories about monsters keeps the Philip Blake incident relegated to a quick aside instead of breaking news. If Rick and Negan hadn't brought that alien behemoth through the portal, Negan's brush with death would have taken far more precedence in the media. So Rick is strangely grateful that he inadvertently revealed the existence of extradimensional creatures. Daryl and Merle Dixon have taken most of the credit for the discovery anyway.

Rick nods at Lee. "I get it. You want to keep her safe. But me and Negan aren't raising Carl into that life. If that's the path he chooses when he's eighteen, I'll make my peace with that."

"Like hell you will," Negan says with a tipsy grin.

"We'll send him to college first," Rick says, compromising. "See if he changes his mind after four years."

Lee smiles. "That's a good plan."

* * *

Later in the evening, after most of the other guests have gone home and taken leftovers with them, Negan's bandmates are gathered around him in the living room. Jesus and Aaron are showing off vacation photos from their trip to Europe. Eugene's sitting solo in the La-Z-Boy, looking awkward with his second plate of carbs. Negan and the others are crammed together on the couch. Despite the physical closeness, he feels worlds away from his companions. He knows they would look at him differently if they knew what really happened with Philip Blake, and he feels like the truth is written all over his face. Negan can handle being somewhat babied by Rick, but not by everyone else in his damn life.

The booze, however, has helped him relax somewhat, and maybe part of that worlds-away feeling is due to the alcohol flowing through his veins. Negan thinks the best way to end the day will be with some of the edibles (courtesy of Simon) hidden away in the master bedroom; Rick might frown disapprovingly at Negan's vice, but with a bit of cajoling he'll join right in.

"Negan." Simon's jabbing him in the ribs with a finger.

"What?"

"You spaced."

"Oh, shit. I was thinking about those weed brownies you gave me."

Simon laughs.

"You have weed brownies?" Carl asks with significant interest, moving into the living room. Apparently he's overheard them.

"Not for you. Your dad would have a shit-fit," Negan tells him, cutting that off at the pass. He might be able to convince Rick to partake, but there's no way Rick would let Negan give their son pot.

Carl sighs. "C'mon, dude."

"This is what you retired for?" Simon wonders, looking at Negan. "Getting high, playing Betty Crocker, and being the Uncool Dad?"

The word hits Negan like he's been slapped with a cold, dead fish. _Retirement._ The others don't know yet. At least they didn't until Simon opened his dumb-ass mouth.

Carl's desire for pot brownies is immediately forgotten under the weight of this revelation. "Retired? What the hell is he talking about?"

Simon grins at Carl, but it's a nasty _I know something you don't_ sort of grin. "He didn't tell you? Well, that seems to be a running theme with Negan lately. But in light of recent events, Negan's decided to call it quits on the Saviors."

"You keep crawlin' up my ass, and Rick's gonna get jealous," Negan says. Where the hell is Rick anyway? He probably fucked off to the basement, exhausted after a long day of socializing with so many people in such a small space.

"You're quitting?" Carl asks him. There's an edge of disbelief and defiance in his voice.

A myriad of conflicting emotions surge through Negan—anger, embarrassment, frustration, anxiety, humiliation. "I—I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but it seems to be going that way."

Carl gapes at him in astonished silence; he couldn't look more upset if he heard his parents were getting divorced.

"That is certainly what I would call a class-A bummer," Eugene says to Negan from the recliner. "But if hanging up your proverbial hat is what it takes to move your state of affairs back to copacetic, then I wish you the best."

Jesus nods in agreement. "It's been fun. And at least we went out on a high note."

"Shit, man, it's the end of an era," Dwight says. "But I get it."

"What?" Carl interjects, sounding bewildered. "No! You guys are supposed to be his friends. You can't just let him give up."

"Talking me out of it's your dad's job," Negan says. "And he's already put in his time." Not that Negan's made a decision either way, but he doesn't want to have this conversation again. Not with an audience.

Carl scoffs, and Negan sees the boiling anger in his rolling eyes. He storms off and up the stairs, slamming his bedroom door for emphasis.

Negan looks at Simon. "Thanks, you dick. Now my kid hates me."

"It was bound to happen eventually," Simon says, dismissive; Negan isn't sure if Simon means telling Carl about leaving the Saviors was bound to happen, or simply that Carl would eventually end up hating his step-father. Hell, maybe both.

"Might've been an easier pill to swallow if it'd come from me," Negan points out.

"Well, it's out now. For better or worse," Jesus says, as though trying to calm the waves of contention between Negan and Simon. "Negan, maybe take the holidays to think it over. There's no real rush to decide now, is there?"

"Save it for a new year's resolution," Aaron adds.

"Maybe that's why I didn't tell them yet," Negan says coldly, glaring at Simon.

Dwight says, "At least Gregory doesn't know."

"That's right. And if you tell him anything, I will personally rip off your dick and feed it to a pack of wild dogs," Negan threatens Simon.

Which, of course, is the moment when Rick comes up from the basement, carrying a half-asleep Judith, with Sherry trailing behind him. "I walked in at the wrong point in this conversation," Rick says, mostly to himself. He catches Negan's eye. "I'll put her to bed."

Negan nods, watches Rick climb the stairs.

Sherry places a hand on Dwight's shoulder. "Hon', we better head home. These two could use a break."

"Yeah, it's gettin' late." Dwight's up and off the couch, grabbing his coat from one of the hooks on the wall in the tiny foyer. "Negan, thank you and Rick for a great time."

"And for the leftovers," Sherry says, holding up two plastic containers of food. "That cheesecake is to die for."

"Maybe I'll send you the recipe," Negan says. "And don't worry about it, D. I live to please." There's an uncomfortable amount of truth in that sentence, and Negan feels briefly exposed.

By the time all the remaining guests have shuffled out, Rick comes downstairs after putting Judith in bed. He joins Negan on the couch, lying warm and solid against his arm. "That wasn't so bad," Rick says with a small smile. "Didn't need the extra chairs after all."

Negan turns his head to kiss Rick's scruffy cheek. "Told ya." His lips work their way south, nibbling at Rick's neck. Rick sighs, warm and wet, against Negan's ear and glides a hand across his thigh. Negan's cock stiffens almost immediately, and Rick's hand dives between his legs, rubbing him through the denim of his jeans.

"Fuck," Negan groans, his head dropping against the back of the couch. The only thing stopping Negan from letting Rick's practiced fingers stroke and squeeze him to orgasm is remembering how distraught Carl had been over his leave from the Saviors. That's a bit of a boner-killer, and Negan sighs, squirming away from Rick's touch.

"I gotta have a talk with Carl," Negan says.

Rick tosses him a flirty look. "You need his permission?"

Negan shakes his head. He forces himself to get up from the couch while he still can, before Rick touches him again and renders Negan incapable of rational thought. "I pissed him off. Gotta make it right."

Rick gazes at him, and Negan knows this display of fatherly priorities, of putting Carl's needs before his own, has Rick swooning. He stands up and briefly wraps his arms around Negan's waist. "You know where to find me." Since the kitchen was wiped down two hours ago, and all plates, silverware, and serving utensils stuffed into the dishwasher, there's nowhere else for Rick to go but upstairs to their bedroom.

Negan follows him but makes a left turn instead of a right. He knocks on Carl's closed door. "Kid, it's me. Open up. We got shit to discuss."

Silence for a moment or two, then: "It's open."

Negan turns the knob and lets himself inside. Carl's lying on his bed and staring at his phone. The room is dark, save for the soft light of his laptop's screensaver.

"It's not even ten o'clock. Turn on a damn light, Nosferatu."

Carl doesn't move, and Negan doesn't switch on a light. He leans against the wall, near the window.

"Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Negan says. "But I didn't want to say anything until I was sure. No sense in gettin' everybody worked up over nothin', right?"

Carl switches off his phone's screen and sits up. "I don't care that you didn't tell me. I'm pissed that you're just giving up, and everyone around you is letting it happen. You think John Lennon would've quit if he'd survived?"

"That's a question for the multi-verse, Morty," Negan says with a burp. "The answer is don't think about it."

Carl scowls, not appreciating the reference. "You're letting him win. And by quitting, you're telling people like him that they can use fear and violence to get their way. That's terrorism, dude."

Negan thinks that's a bit of a stretch, but since when have teenagers not spoken hyperbole as a second language? "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that shit works. That's why people use it."

"But it's not fair—"

"More bad news—

"I know, 'life isn't fair,'" Carl says in that dopey tone people use when they're mocking someone. "So isn't it our job to make it fair? Or to at least try?"

Negan wishes he could tap into Carl's unvarnished idealism. But he has seen too much, knows too much about how things are to entertain the notion. "Kid, someone tried to kill me and your sister, and he would have killed your dad and probably you if you'd been there. All because that prick had a bone to pick with me. I don't wanna fuck with that kind of crazy."

"But that's just one person," Carl argues. "What about all the fans who aren't jerks? The ones who leave comments like 'this song saved my life' on your YouTube videos. The ones who picked up a guitar 'cause they heard your music. Aren't those people way more important?"

"And how long until one of them turns into him? 'Til somebody else decides to take their shit out on me?"

"That guy was just a bully. Dad told me to stand up to bullies, because they only pick on people they think are weak. If you show them you're not, they won't mess with you."

"Why do I have to be a goddamn role model or poster boy for this shit? Why can't I just do whatever the fuck I want?"

"'Cause I don't think you want to quit. I don't think you can. It's who you are. I know 'cause I'm the same way. When I play a really good video game or hear an awesome song, I wanna make one of my own. It's like an addiction."

How does Carl know that Negan feels the urge to write music like an addict craving a fix? Or how he gets restless and twisted up when he can't put his ideas onto paper? Every now and then a riff or snippet of new lyrics will pop into his head, and he'll see the rest of the song forming behind his eyes in an imaginary wall of letters and chords, like he's Benadryl Whatshisface from that Sherlock series. And it kills Negan that he can't bring those things to life, that he has to stop the reflex to reach for a pen or one of his guitars.

Carl says, "Instead of quitting, can't you write songs and just not record them?"

What, then, would be the point? Negan flashes back to his childhood, a thing which he tries not to do. He was nine years old, sitting at the kitchen table and drawing his best picture to date. His mother was preparing dinner, and his father happened by the table, catching sight of Negan's artwork. "You draw that?"

"Yeah. It's Batman and Superman fighting in space," Negan said proudly.

"You gonna be an artist when you grow up?" his father asked. His words were slightly slurred from the booze on his breath.

"No, it's just fun."

His father scoffed. "Fun? A waste of time and talent is what that is. Don't do somethin' you're good at for free. The world don't turn on fun, you little bastard. You'd do best to remember that."

And Negan did. Even forty years later, he remembers.

"You don't know—you don't know what that asshole did," Negan says instead.

"I do." Carl looks at him, and Negan sees it in his eyes. Carl _knows_. "I heard you telling Dad about it. And what that guy did is so fucked up, but you can't let him keep controlling your life. 'Cause then he'll always be hiding in the shadows."

"Thanks, Dr. Phil." While Negan hears the wisdom in Carl's words, he's become somewhat possessive of his own grief and pain, and he doesn't feel up to letting go right now. Letting go feels too much like forgiveness at this juncture. And he's still stunned that Carl knows his darkest secret.

Carl sighs and flops onto the bed, as though seeing the futility of arguing with Negan. "Whatever, dude. You're gonna do what you're gonna do, I guess. But it really sucks that you're just giving up."

Negan doesn't know how to respond to that, so he moves to leave.

"Can you guys at least try to keep it down in there?" Carl tips his head towards the bedroom wall that backs up against Rick and Negan's own. "I can hear you, y'know."

"We'll make some extra noise tonight," Negan says. "Just for you."

"Ugh, can you not? Is it really too much to ask that I don't wanna hear my parents having sex?"

"You got headphones. Use 'em." Negan grins at Carl's grimace of disgust before leaving the room.


	35. Chapter 35

_December 2015_

Negan's digging the Christmas decorations out of the basement when his phone buzzes in the back pocket of his jeans. He checks the screen and sees a text from Maggie: _My sister Beth covered some of your songs. Thought you'd like to hear. :)_

Included is a link to Beth Greene's YouTube channel, showcasing her covers ranging from artists like the Saviors and Bob Dylan to Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. It's not hard to see why she's getting a couple hundred thousand views per video: cute girl plus acoustic guitar equals YouTube famous. Beth's version of "Love is Blind" is one of her top viewed videos, so Negan goes with that. Her guitar work is almost a spot-on match to the actual song, but what really impresses Negan is Beth's voice; soft, airy, and sweet, it's a perfect fit for the innocent feel of the song, and Negan is momentarily transported back to the butterflies of his crush on Rick.

Hearing how Beth's voice adds new textures to his music, Negan's first instinct is to reach out and collaborate with her. He's done a few guest spots on other artists' songs but never featured anyone on a Saviors track. A duet would be _the shit_ , he thinks. Would it be disingenuous if he had Beth sing "Darling" with him on the next album?

 _Next album? Whoa, slow down there, buddy._

He ends up sitting on the couch and watching all of Beth's Saviors covers. Her acoustic version of "Fool in the Rain" gives him chills; he never really considered stripping the song down like that, but, hot damn, does it work.

Negan types a reply to Maggie: _**holy shit she is awesome! I'm blown the hell away! Let her know I'm ready, willing, and able to collaborate if she wants a duet.**_

He hesitates, his thumb hovering over the keys. He erases the last sentence and hits send.

* * *

Throughout the month, Negan keeps himself busy by decorating the house (inside and out, both in true Clark Griswold style), and pitching Rick gift ideas for the kids through texts. Only one of the items intended for Carl is a gag gift, though Rick suspects Negan's being cheeky by suggesting the noise-cancelling headphones.

When school lets out for winter break, Negan throws himself full-time into keeping the kids entertained, though Carl is mostly self-sufficient. Negan bakes colorful cookies and brownies with Judith, helps her put together an impressive gingerbread house that's almost too pretty to eat. When Rick passes by the kitchen, he hears Negan humming or whistling along with a song in his head, though none of the tunes belong to the Saviors. Interesting.

Today, Negan's out in the backyard with Judith while they build a snowman. Rick watches them through the frosted glass of the back door, sipping at his morning coffee. He observes Negan with equal parts adoration and concern. While Rick can't exactly condemn the methods Negan's using as replacements for creativity, he does worry what might happen later down the line. Rick has seen glimpses of how Negan self-medicates with alcohol, heard flippant references to it in his songs and speech; that's the last path Rick wants Negan heading down.

But Rick understands that Negan's unpacking a whole bunch of trauma. Despite opening up about the Philip Blake incident, merely speaking about the things that happened doesn't absolve Negan of dealing with them; Rick wishes it could be that easy, but alas. At this stage, all Rick can do is support Negan, come what may. Negan will find his way in time.

Outside, Judith has rolled up a snowball that's almost taller than she is. Negan hefts the round pile of snow onto the base of the snowman, forming the torso.

Negan's cell phone, lying on the kitchen island, vibrates against the marble; judging from the electronic noise emitting from the phone's speakers, Negan has either changed his ringtone, or the EDM version of "Party" is reserved for Rick's calls. Negan doesn't often get phone calls. Most everyone who knows him communicates through texts. A phone call must mean something important.

Rick glances at the screen; the cell's display shows the 'accept' and 'deny' buttons for the call, as well as Gregory's name and photo.

Rick opens the back door. Cold air blasts into the house, chilling him through his flimsy button-up. "Negan. Phone."

"Daddy, it snowed!" Judith informs him, tossing a handful of powdery white at Rick.

"I'll be right back, darlin'," Negan says to Judith. "Your daddy can help you finish up Olaf."

It takes Rick a second to place the name. Yes, of course, the snowman.

Negan squeezes past Rick in the doorway, steals Rick's coffee mug as he slips inside. Rick surrenders the mug with nary a complaint. While Rick closes the door, he hears Negan answer the phone with, "Oh, look, it's the Grinch, just in time to steal Christmas!"

Rick approaches the snowman, intent on helping Judith, but Judith fixes him with a curious look. "Daddy, you're s'posed to wear a coat," she scolds. "And mittens!" She holds up her own bright pink ones, as though Rick might not know what she's referring to.

Rick doesn't think dressing for a brutal winter is really necessary when he's only going to be out here for maybe five minutes, but he supposes it's about setting an example for Judith. "You're right. Good catch. Hold on, honey."

He slips back into the house to fetch his coat and gloves on the rack near the front door. He overhears Negan on the phone: "Yeah, I'm gonna have to give that one a pass. … Because I fucking said no? Maybe that word doesn't mean jack-shit to people anymore, but—"

Rick pretends to search his coat pockets, feigns trouble with pulling on his gloves, anything to eavesdrop. Negan's pacing through the kitchen like a caged tiger.

"Well, la-dee-fucking-dah! You can't always get what you want, Gregory. The Stones said that, and it is the gospel truth." Negan pauses to hear whatever Gregory's saying on the other end. A darkness crosses over his face, and Negan snarls, "Do _not_ pull that shit with me."

Rick sneaks through the back door and returns to Judith. She's rolled up a mound of snow for the head, and Rick lifts it into place. Judith digs through her coat pockets for the snowman's facial features: a carrot nose, and a few small rocks for its eyes and mouth.

Negan rejoins them in the backyard a minute or two later. Rick can tell there's a bit of a dark, angry cloud hovering over him, but Negan puts on a cheery face. "Y'know what I miss about old phones?" he says to Rick. "You could slam 'em down and it was actually satisfying. You can't slam an iPhone without crushing your fingers." He gets a look at the finished snowman. "Well, look at _this_ cool dude!"

Rick almost groans out loud.

"He's missing a little somethin'…" Negan takes the deep red scarf from around his own neck and wraps it around the place where the snowman's head and torso intersect. "There we go!" He flicks the snowman's carrot nose. "Stay frosty, Jack."

"Can I make another one?" Judith asks.

"If you got enough snow, go right ahead."

Their backyard is somewhat compact, resembling more a small square of porch and grass than a real yard. The rather light snowfall means Judith's going to have a hard time building a second snowman, but that doesn't stop her from trying. She crouches by a small puddle of snow and gets to work.

"Did you drink all my coffee?" Rick asks Negan and searches his mouth for the answer. His lips are warm, the taste of peppermint mocha on his tongue. Rick's fingers curl around the lapels of Negan's leather jacket.

"To the last drop. Better keep kissin' me if you want your caffeine buzz."

Rick would love to do exactly that, but he doesn't fall for Negan's ploy. "What'd Gregory want?"

"To crawl up my ass, like he always does." Negan slides an arm around Rick's waist, tucking him closer. "But I've got you for that, don't I?" He flashes a lecherous smile.

Rick smiles in kind, but it's gentler than Negan's. "You sounded a little heated."

""Cause the stupid prick always tries to work me. He and the Bitch would've gotten along great. Only reason I haven't fired him is, when push comes to shove, he's scared of me. A bigger prick might not be."

Better the devil you know, Rick figures. "So what'd he want?"

"Some magazine wants an exclusive interview about all the bullshit that went down. The rest of the band's already given the go-ahead. But I don't wanna dredge that shit up again. It's nobody's goddamn business but my therapist's."

"You don't have a therapist."

"You're a man of many talents, Rick, and listening to my shit is one of 'em."

Rick doubts his qualifications on that front, but if Negan wants someone to listen without offering judgment, then he supposes he's the best man for the job.

* * *

"Judy has a check-up today," Rick tells Negan one morning on the week before Christmas. They're still lying in bed, neither wanting to leave the toasty comfort of the blankets. "Can I trust you and Carl to behave while we're gone?"

"You know the kid just stays up in his room most of the time," Negan says.

Rick rephrases his original question: "Can I trust _you_ to behave, then?"

"Me? I'm always a perfect little angel, Rick." Negan snuggles closer and slides a hand down Rick's thigh. Rick squirms but doesn't twist away. "Any reason you don't want me to take her?"

"I've got errands. Work stuff."

Negan grins. "That's vague enough to be a cover story for Christmas shopping. Have fun with your 'errands.'"

After Rick and Judith leave, Negan spends most of the afternoon in the basement playing video games. Over the last couple months, Negan has played almost all the games he owns, though he's not a completionist obsessed with collectibles or getting perfect scores on each mission. Gaming is mindless fun, but it loses its luster after a while, the concept of diminishing returns at its finest. There is no real, tangible accomplishment after finishing a game, and as a replacement for his past hobbies it's incredibly unfulfilling.

To fill the time, maybe he'll have to start binge-watching shows on Netflix, but just lying there watching something is even more passive and non-interactive than playing games.

He hears the basement door creak open. He knows it's only Carl, but his panic reflex kicks in nonetheless.

"Hey, Negan?" Carl calls down the stairs.

"What's up?"

"Can I borrow one of your guitars?"

"Sure, kid. Come on down and pick your poison."

Carl does just that, surveying Negan's collection of equipment gathered in the corner. He unzips soft cases and flicks metal catches as though searching for something.

"Looking for anything specific?" Negan asks.

"Not really. I came up with something and just wanna hear what it sounds like on an electric." Carl settles on an imported Edwards in aqua marine, drawing it out of its case. He sits in the nearby recliner and tests the strings. After a few small tweaks, it's in tune. "What do you usually use for distortion?"

"A whole bunch of different shit. But you can try the blue box by your foot."

Carl finds the effects box and plugs into it.

"Hook it up to the mini-amp," Negan suggests.

Once Carl gets everything set up, he experiments with the various effects. Whatever he's come up with starts out with E minor, because he strums the chord a couple times to test each sound before switching to the next. After a few cycles through the preset knob, he finds a heavy metal crunch sound that Negan has used and abused over the years. This must be the sound Carl's aiming for, because he plays beyond the E minor chord, shredding out something that could pass as a Pantera or a Slayer song; Negan's impressed the kid has something like that in him.

As Carl plays, Negan hears the places that could use a bit of melody, and he can almost hear in his own head how those additions should sound. If he could just get his hands on one of those guitars and figure it out…

Fuck it. He slips around the recliner and finds his tried-and-true cherry red Strat. Carl stops playing, his chunky chords replaced by the low hum of feedback from the amp.

"Don't mind me," Negan says, suddenly self-conscious. "Thought I'd give you some accompaniment."

Carl hesitates a moment then resumes playing from the beginning. Negan plugs into a spare amp, sets the high E-string back in tune. Carl's on the quick interlude part now, and Negan would prefer if the kid started from the top, but, whatever, he's just fucking around here anyway. Carl brings the song back around to the main riff, and Negan joins in on the second bar with a quick burst of higher-pitched notes to complement the low chords. Carl's momentarily thrown off by Negan's impromptu participation, but he seems to get the idea; since he plays every line at least twice, Negan can jump in over the second one with a short solo bit, sort of a call-and-response exercise.

Negan hasn't played in about two months, but it's like riding a bicycle, as the saying goes, and maybe a break has been just what he needed; the improvisation comes more easily than it might have in the absence of this artistic dry spell. He fills his lines with short phrases of hammer-ons and slides, his fingers skittering up and down the fretboard in brief, blistering solos. He feels more alive—and more like himself—than he has in a long time.

Carl brings them to a close, letting that crunchy E minor chord ring. "That was awesome," he says, truly awed. "You just made all that up?"

"Half of it was just me playing your chords at a higher pitch. The rest was, yeah, kinda bullshit."

"But your bullshit sounds amazing, dude."

"Don't sell yourself short. Yours wasn't half bad."

Carl smiles, embarrassed. "You think?"

"I don't blow smoke up your ass; I call it like I see it. What else you got in there?" Negan says, pointing a thumb at Carl's head.

"Uh…" Carl stares at the strings of the guitar, as though willing them to come to life.

"Don't be shy. Show me what you got."

"It's not really meant for electric," Carl says.

"There should be an acoustic preset on the effects box. It ain't perfect, but it's close enough."

Carl fiddles with the knob until he finds the preset Negan mentioned. He plucks a couple strings, testing it out before deeming the effect good enough for his purposes. He strums out a clean, choppy rhythm, jumping from F# minor (does Carl read that as F-hashtag minor, Negan wonders) to B, then E and A. When he reaches what Negan assumes is the bridge, Carl uses the same chords, but the rhythm is smoother, quicker, and once again Negan hears a melody line coming to life in his head.

He switches out the Strat for an acoustic and plays along, figuring out where the notes might go. Negan has a lot more freedom than he did with the last song, more room for improvisation. And this thing he's cooking up here with Carl sounds pretty damn good, in Negan's not-so-humble opinion. It's an exhilarating experience to have a new collaborative partner, someone who can bring fresh ideas to the table; not that Negan doesn't respect Jesus, Simon, and the rest of the Saviors, but things can get a bit stale when you're bouncing ideas off the same walls for a couple decades. That's one of the reasons Negan brought Eugene into the fold in the first place. And Carl probably has his finger on the pulse of what's new in today's music; his influence could guide Negan & the Saviors toward a newer sound without seeming like out-of-touch trend-chasers.

 _I don't think you want to quit. I don't think you can. It's who you are. It's like an addiction._

Negan plays until Carl runs out of song. His eyes are misty by the end.


	36. Chapter 36

After Judith's check-up, Rick makes the drive to his office in the city. Judith has been sated with McDonald's to make her more agreeable to their detour, as well as keep her from getting too hungry.

Inside the newly-expanded office, Rick shakes hands with Daryl and Merle, officially welcoming them on board as associates. "Good to have you here," Rick says.

"Where's your better half?" Merle asks. Did Daryl tell his brother about Negan and Rick's relationship, or did their argument at the park ranger station remove all doubt that they're a couple?

"Negan's at home," says Rick.

"Well, ain't that sweet?"

Rick's kind of regretting this decision, at least until Daryl elbows Merle in the side and sneers, "Shut up." It's then that Daryl notices Judith, and he crouches down to her level. "Hey there. What's your name?"

"Judith," she answers, still possessing no fear of strangers.

"I'm Daryl. This here's my brother Merle. We're gonna be workin' with your dads, helpin' 'em get rid of monsters."

Maybe Daryl's not so bad, Rick thinks.

Rick shows them around the new addition that serves as Daryl and Merle's personal consultation office. It's rather bare-bones for now, since Rick figured the brothers would want to add their own sense of decor. There's a desk, an empty bookshelf, and three chairs, mirroring much of Rick's own setup.

"You find a nice place to call home?" Rick asks them later.

Daryl gives a half-shrug. "Had a lot worse."

Merle makes a sound of agreement. "Thank God we don't live together anymore. I was _this_ close to tearin' his stupid ass apart."

Daryl rolls his eyes.

"I know this is all a big change from what you're used to," Rick says, "but now that the word's out about these things, we'll be seein' a lot more business."

"Did Carol tell you what happened?" Daryl asks.

Dread grips Rick, and his mind is filled with horrifying possibilities. "No. What?"

"She's the one who took that photo," Daryl explains. "Sent it to the media. Said she did it to keep more kids like Sophia from disappearin'."

Rick blinks and lets that one sink in. He'd been wondering who snapped the picture of the extradimensional monster and how that story had leaked to the press. "I figured you guys were behind that."

Merle laughs. "Hell no."

"So she was with you when you went after that creature," Rick says.

Daryl nods. "Sent her husband home with the kid. She's a tough lady. Didn't think she had it in her."

Rick wonders if Carol might cross that internal threshold and become a hunter. If she showed up here looking for a job, would he reject her? Rick thinks that he might, and for the same reasons Daryl cited during their last conversation at the park: _You got him, you got kids. You choose this life, the people around you get hurt._

Rick is well aware of his own hypocracy, but at least he knows Daryl wouldn't want Carol coming on board for those same reasons. Merle may be a wild card, but Negan will back whatever Rick agrees to.

* * *

Since Negan made Thanksgiving a grand spectacle, Rick suggested they dial back the scale of Christmas, so the gifts underneath the tree aren't particularly grandiose this year. But even without a spending limit, it might have been near impossible for Negan to top last Christmas, in which he'd gifted Rick the Mazda, fulfilling a cliché Rick believed only happened in holiday-themed car commercials. Real people don't do that, he'd assumed; gifting someone an expensive new Mercedes or Audi tied with a big red ribbon was a marketing ploy as manufactured as the car itself. But of course Negan lives to challenge Rick's perceptions of how the world works.

So this year's hundred-dollar spending cap per recipient scaled things back a bit, as evidenced by the gifts unwrapped from those colorful packages under the Christmas tree. Carl is the laziest gift-giver for the second consecutive year, resorting to gift cards and t-shirts, though he goes above and beyond for Judith, giving her a stack of coloring books and a box containing over a hundred crayons; Rick didn't even know that many colors existed. Negan spoils the kids—toys and books for Judith, pop culture and band t-shirts for Carl—and gifts Rick an assortment of coffee-related items: a new mug, Keurig pods, and two small bags of special blend roasts. Rick does about the same as Negan did for the kids but withholds his present for Negan until tonight.

"Ew," Carl says with great offense.

"It's not like that," Rick protests, because, really, it isn't a sex thing.

"Well, I am intrigued," Negan says with a grin. "Unless you're lyin' to the kid."

"No, total honesty."

Later that evening, Judith falls asleep on her own, exhausted by the exciting day. Carl's in his room, so Rick takes Negan upstairs for his present.

"Gotta say, it's startin' to look like a sex thing," Negan says, following Rick into the bedroom. "Not that I'm complaining _at all_."

Rick opens one of his dresser drawers and digs around, finding the cigar box filled with knick-knacks. He opens one of the flaps and takes out a small, soft package lazily wrapped in green tissue paper. Rick places the gift in Negan's eager hands, says, "Simon helped, but the idea was all me."

Negan discovers a hefty bag of weed inside the tissue paper. "Well, hot damn, honey! You are just full of surprises!" His awed smile is another present for Rick; Rick hasn't seen Negan smile like that very often since the Philip Blake incident. "Any chance you wanna light up with me?"

"Odds are pretty high," Rick says, earning a laugh from Negan.

They sit on the bed, and Negan rolls their joints with practiced precision. "Watch and learn, Pretty Ricky," Negan says. "There's gonna be a test later."

"Oh, I'm watchin'." Rick can't take his eyes off Negan's fingers or the way his tongue seals the ends of the rolling papers. "Is it gonna be an oral exam?"

Negan snickers, perhaps appreciating Rick's lousy attempt at Negan's own brand of humor. "Goddamn, your flirt game is gettin' too strong."

All Rick really did was make a joke Negan himself would have made. "The student surpasses the master."

"Don't get cocky. You will never usurp me as reigning dick-joke master."

"'Usurp' is a pretty high-dollar word for you."

"I'm a high-dollar guy." Negan finishes rolling one of the joints and hands it to Rick. "Now let's get fuckin' baked."

So they do. The smoke is thin and cloying. Rick tries to keep up with the way Negan's sucking on the blunt, but Negan has decades of practice going for him, as evidenced by the fancy smoke rings puffing out from between his lips.

"Show-off," Rick grumbles. He takes another hit and holds the smoke in his lungs. The world feels fuzzy and unreal, similar to slipping through that portal.

"It's not hard. You can do this same shit with regular ol' cigarettes." Negan cocks an eyebrow at him. "Or are you too milquetoast for that?"

Rick sucks in a deep hit. Smoke crawls over his eyeballs, and his lungs feel like they're being scraped with a shovel, but _milquetoast_? That shit will not stand. Rick swallows a cough. His eyes and nose burn. "Lori's parents smoked, so she hated the smell." He doesn't mention that he never had much of an interest in the little cancer sticks, that he hates the smell too. Not that pot is any more aromatic.

"This is the hardest shit you've done, huh? Baby's first blunt." Negan grins, wide and teasing; Rick is torn between arousal and irritation.

"It's not my first," Rick says, indignant. "And I've smoked with you before. You were there. Unless all the pot made your brain spring a leak."

Negan laughs, smoke pouring from his mouth and nose as he does it. "Nah, that was the coke. Pot just makes me feel all cozy." He settles against the pillows to demonstrate the point.

There's a skull-shaped ashtray between them on the bed, and Rick taps his skeleton of ash into it. He joins Negan, reclining, and gazes at the ceiling. He's close enough that he can hear the crinkle of paper as Negan takes another deep drag. Briefly, Rick wonders if Carl knows his parents smoke bud, if he's smelled it on their clothes or in the bedroom. Carl's no dummy; hell, he's probably smoked a joint or two himself, unbeknownst to Rick. Though if pot is the worst thing Carl ever gets into, Rick will be grateful.

"You think I'm a hypocrite?" Rick wonders aloud.

"You're gonna have to explain that one, honey," Negan says after waiting for Rick to elaborate.

Rick takes a second or two to gather his thoughts amongst the ganja cloud hovering over them. "Carol's the one who took the picture of that thing. She went with Daryl and Merle to go after it." It's the only creature Rick and Negan have never been able to identify, and it bothers Rick they don't have a name for it; Negan's taken to calling it Dickless. "Seems like she's got what it takes to be a hunter. But she's got a daughter and a husband. It feels… wrong to let her go down that road."

Negan makes a contemplative noise, taps the ash growing off his joint into the tray. When he settles back, he says, "Well, one, you don't _let_ her do anything. She's not a little girl, and you're not her daddy. That's a title you give only to me." A lazy smirk curls on Negan's lips.

Rick really regrets the one time he indulged Negan's weird kink.

"Second, has she mentioned wanting to hunt?"

"No, but… seems like she's headed that way." Rick takes another pull. "Daryl said she leaked the photo 'cause she wanted to protect kids like Sophia from gettin' taken."

Negan gives a one-shoulder shrug. "Alright, but here's a newsflash for you: what we do—or did, now that you got redneck Beavis and Butt-head doin' the dirty work—isn't any more dangerous than you bein' a goddamn cop-slash-sheriff. If that ain't a job with risk written all over it, I don't know what is. But you did it. And so do millions of other people. And let's add firefighters and anyone who enlists in the military. Even those dudes who clean the windows of skyscrapers risk their lives for a living. Did Lori ever give you shit while you were one of Bumblefuck County's finest?"

"It was somethin' she worried about, but not enough that she'd force me to quit."

Negan offers up a hand as if to say, _See?_ "Now that the lid's blown off this whole monster thing, it'll be a couple years max 'til we get the same kind of respect as any other job with an element of danger." Negan takes a hit. "But what the fuck ever. If Carol comes to you wantin' to gank monsters, her Yoda you will be."

Rick knows he shouldn't encourage Negan's bad jokes, but being high makes everything ten times funnier, so he chortles despite his better judgment. "Just feels like a lot for her to risk, is all."

"And it's not for you? Yeah, yeah, training, experience, blah, blah. You're still risking your life. But you're saving people. That's a damn good reason, don't you think?"

Rick peels his gaze from the ceiling and looks at Negan. Negan's hair is pillow-mussed, his eyes glazed from the pot. But he looks far more relaxed and _himself_ than Rick has seen in a while. "When'd you get so well-adjusted?"

"It's the weed, man," Negan says with a laugh before taking the final pull off the spliff.

* * *

 _January 2016_

Negan can't sleep. In fact, insomnia has plagued him since the beginning of the new year, which strikes him as oddly appropriate. _New year, new me,_ as the saying goes, and Negan has found this new version of himself to be restless and overall a mopey pain in the ass. But Rick isn't complaining, though every now and then Negan wishes he would.

Lying in bed at 3 a.m with Rick sleeping beside him, Negan is wide awake, inspiration scratching under his skin, like the pins-and-needles tingle of a limb that has gone numb. He's been hearing a song in his head, a whistling melody that won't leave. Snippets of lyrics have begun to bloom like flowers in the garden of his mind. Oh, how he would love to write them down, to _create_ again. Negan doesn't know who he is if he isn't creating something; it's a process he's partaken in for a great deal of his life. How does a person cut something like that out of their inner tapestry without going a little mad?

 _You don't,_ Negan thinks in that nasty, insolent voice belonging to the worst sum of his parts. _How much longer do you think you can push it away? Music is what you do, and you're not cut out for anything else. You can't hit a curve-ball, you can't write novels or short stories, and you can't perform a triple-bypass or a root canal. But you can write some damn catchy songs. Own that shit._

Maybe the worst part of him has a point. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Or maybe it's not his worst self after all. Maybe this voice belongs to that true self trapped in that stone gorge, the one that empowered him during the Philip ordeal: _You're a bad-ass. You aren't scared of shit._

And isn't that truer now than ever? Negan has survived an abusive father, an abusive spouse, the deaths of Lucille and Emily, and now he has survived and outlasted an obsessive douchebag with an axe to grind. Negan ought to feel invincible, unstoppable, instead of this strange sense of fragility that has overshadowed him since the Philip Blake incident.

 _You're afraid,_ he thinks, and there's that nasty little voice proper. _You think that fear is only for your family's wellbeing, and maybe there's some truth to that, but mostly you're afraid of what might come from that haunted head of yours after this._

Yes, Negan supposes that's right. All of his best material has come in the wake of some personal injustice: "Fake Love," "Fool in the Rain," "Drunk," "Out of My Life," and even "No Man's Land" encompassed and harnessed Negan's anger, either at another person or at himself. His catchy, radio-friendly singles hit the top of the charts, but his strongest songs are the ones with teeth.

Negan rolls onto his back so he doesn't have to see the blaring red numbers on the bedside clock.

 _I don't think you want to quit. I don't think you can. It's who you are._

Carl had said that, and Negan sees the truth in it now. He's still surprised the kid had him figured out that easily. Their jam session in the basement drove the point home, because Negan just could _not_ resist picking up a guitar and joining in.

And maybe Negan could get by simply writing music for his own enjoyment, but he knows he's not wired that way. The act of recording and releasing a song to the public is a kind of bloodletting ritual for Negan. Without sacrificing the piece to the proverbial gods, he doesn't much see the point in making the thing in the first place. That's probably his father talking (" _The world don't turn on fun, you little bastard_ "), but it seems too late to start deprogramming now.

Negan slips out of bed, careful not to wake Rick as he does so. Rick has become accustomed to Negan's midnight trips to the booze cabinet, so he doesn't awaken, merely makes a soft grunt in his sleep and turns over.

But Negan doesn't go downstairs to pluck a bottle of Jack from the cabinet and pour himself a glass. Instead, he heads for the basement.

He finds his things just as he'd left them. Carl has been down here on occasion to experiment with Negan's guitars and various sound equipment, though he returns them to their proper places when he's finished. Negan pulls out the drawer of the side table beside the futon. Inside are his lyrics journals and pens, along with assorted small junk usually found in old drawers: trading cards of athletes, spare pairs of earbuds, rubber bands, paper-clips, tubes of medicated lip balm, strips of band-aids.

He removes a pen and the journal lying on top of the stack. He flips through, glancing at chunks of songs in varying states of completion. Negan finds the lyrics he'd written so soon after Philip Blake's intrusion into his life, scans over them momentarily before turning to a blank page.

 _Scratch the itch. Feed the monkey._

His pulse beats in his throat. Negan grasps the pen and begins to write. When he fills one page, he turns it over and fills the other side. By the time he scribbles out some loose chords, his face is wet with tears.

* * *

"To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing."

\- Unknown


End file.
